As I Lay Me
by Chicleeblair
Summary: Meredith and Derek are living their dreams. So, of course. in the way of things something occurs which could cause things to change. Sequel to I Wish I May.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Meredith Grey slid into bed at three AM, wishing for not the first time in the past three years that she had chosen an easier profession. Or professions, really, because mothering and being a surgeon both required her full-time attention. Her husband was sound asleep next to her, and she pressed up against him. He automatically wrapped his arms around her, a gesture that had become routine in the two years since they had gotten married. She felt safer when he was holding onto her.

The nursery monitor was quiet, which meant that their two-year-old daughter was finally, finally asleep. Recently, she had developed night terrors, and there was nothing to be done about them except hold her until she fell back asleep. Derek was usually home at night more, but today both of them had had the same day off. It was nice, and did not happen often.

Suddenly, Meredith knew that she was not about to fall asleep. Damn it. She rubbed her face against the pillow, attempting to relax. She heard slight movement from around the house. Izzie and George were still there, making it crowded, but easier to take care of Lydia with all of their schedules. Once the house that she and Derek were building was finished they would move over there, and she would let George and Izzie duke it out over the house.

She might even sell tickets to that one, she mused, smirking into the darkness. But then, it could end up as more of a fight between Alex and Callie, their defenders, which would be even more amusing.

Yeah. She was tired.

Derek sighed in his sleep and shifted his hands against her. She snuggled to roll over against him, without breaking his grasp, and closed her eyes, determined not to let the insomnia win over. Sleep was too important. She had to go to work in three hours and be a third year neurosurgical resident. Fatigue did not go well with that.

Eventually, she felt herself dozing off, but she was still thinking. They had visited her mother that day, and she had seemed well. She had spoken nicely to Lydia, and called Meredith by her name, once. But they were slowly and steadily losing her. Even the chief's visits did not perk her up as much as they once did. The staff at the facility kept telling Meredith that in a few months she might never be lucid; that it could only be a few years before they lost her.

Just when Meredith was starting to forgive her.

She sighed, and attempted to think of nothing. Blankness. It was almost certainly after 3:30, and she needed sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Eventually, everything became hazy and when she woke up she thought she might just have fallen asleep, but what she woke up to was not pleasant. The phone was ringing. She pulled herself up from the fog of maybe-almost-sleep and reached out blindly for the bedside table. She knocked the receiver to the floor.

"Shit," she groaned, diving down to grab it, and hitting her head on the bedside table.

"Hello?" she murmured, putting her head back on the pillow. It was probably Cristina, and she would understand that Meredith was not responsible for staying awake through the conversation. Not when it was _holy crap_ 4:15 in the morning.

"Meredith? Is Derek there?" she barely recognized the voice in her confusion.

"He's asleep," she said, glancing over to see that he really wasn't, but he looked like he very much wanted to be.

"Please, I need to speak to him, it's an emergency." Addison's voice cracked, and Meredith's heart skipped a beat. She sounded really desperate.

"Um…okay, here," Meredith said, pushing the phone into Derek's hand and mouthing 'Addison'.

"Hello?" Derek said, as Meredith slid back down under the covers to attempt to sleep again.

And then Lydia started to whimper from the nursery monitor. She must have heard the phone. Or the crash.

"I'll go to her," she said, to no one in particular, since Derek was frowning as he listened to the phone and not her.

Lydia was tangled up on the covers that Meredith had just smoothed out not long ago. She was not really awake, and her eyes cracked open only a little bit when Meredith lifted her up to straighten the blankets.

"Shh, sweetheart," she whispered, smoothing down her daughter's dark curls. She had Derek's hair, and Meredith's eyes. She was a perfect mixture of both of them. Meredith kissed her smooth cheek and went back to her bedroom. Where the light was on. She blinked to adjust to it, and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Derek getting dressed.

"What is it?" she asked, hoarsely.

"It's Mark," Derek said, pulling his shirt over his head. "There was a car accident and he sustained a pretty bad head injury. Addison wants me to come and look at him. He hasn't regained consciousness yet."

"Isn't someone else there?" Meredith said, stifling a yawn.

"Yeah. But she wants me there." Derek sighed and crouched next to the bed. "She's scared, Mer, and she trusts me. For this, anyway. You understand?"

"Of course," Meredith reassured him, kissing his fingers. "I'll be there at six. I'd go now, but I don't want to wake Lyddie up until I have to."

Derek nodded. "Okay. I love you," he said tenderly, knowing that she needed to hear it. He kissed her, passionately, and then left the room. She sat there, listening to him go out the front door and thinking about what had just happened.

It wasn't that she had any problems with him going for Addison. Not really. Some part of her though felt… strange, when she had heard her voice at the other end of the line. And then Derek had gone into motion. She knew that that was how he was, he would have done it for one of her friends, or Bailey, or Dr. Webber. There was just something strange about it being Addison.

She wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew that she would only be more miserable when she woke up in another hour, so she got up and began to slowly put her clothes on, feeling alone in the empty room.

* * *

Derek Shepard frowned at the scans in front of him. He did not want to be doing this. He did not want to be examining the CT results of the man who had ruined his marriage, but who was also the reason that he had met the love of his life. He did not want to go talk to Addison, who was sitting in the waiting room, pale and shaking.

But he had to. Once they had shared that bond. Once they had been in love. He had to be her support now. He had an obligation.

"Dr. Shepard? How does it look?" Meredith addressed him by his formal title as she often did at work, particularly in front of interns, nurses and technicians. She pressed a cardboard cup of coffee into his hand and he silently gripped her hand in his. They weren't like he and Addison had been, they rarely showed affection at work, because even though it had been two years there were still whispers. Right now though, he needed to know that she was there.

"What can you tell me, Dr. Grey?" he asked, running his finger along the top of her hand.

"I can tell you that it is too early in the morning for this," she murmured seriously, running a finger along the film, where the damage in Mark Sloan's brain was evident. "Severe bleeding, but it looks as if it could be controlled. Even then, though, there is the risk of coma, which could possibly lead to PVS. Damn it." She lowered her hand and looked down at the floor.

He turned to her and gently tipped her chin up to look at him. "Hey. We'll do our best."

"Yeah. But they don't deserve this. We're happy now, they should be happy."

"I know, Mer." He sighed. "Come on, let's go talk to Addison. I would make my resident do it, but I think I'll go with her." The teasing fell harshly into the tension and neither of them smiled.

Alex and Izzie were in the waiting room, sitting apart from Addison. It appeared that even Izzie, who had worked with Addison for so long, did not know what to do with an Addison that looked this defeated. It surprised Derek, and yet it did not, that it was Meredith who took the chair next to Addison and put her arm around her as if it was the most natural thing to do. Addison grasped for Meredith's offered hand as Derek pulled a chair up in front of her.

"Addie? Can you look at me?" Slowly she lifted her head, her eyes shot with red/  
"Okay. I'm going to be honest with you; there is not much that we can do. We'll go in to run damage control on the bleeding, but after that it's going to be up to Mark. He could come out of it with minimal damage, but he could…. He could fall into PVS."

A gasp came from Izzie, and Derek glanced over to see her clutch Alex's hand as Meredith spoke, "That's Persistent Vegetative State, Addison. There is a chance of him coming out of the coma all right; he's young and otherwise healthy. There's no need to panic just yet."

Derek marveled at how well Meredith was dealing with this, she was always good at dealing with patient's families, and she seemed to be the only one to remember that right now Addison was not Dr. Montgomery, she was Mark's scared fiancée.

There was silence in the room, for several minutes. Addison's breath was coming in short, ragged gasps and no one could figure out what to do, or say. Eventually, Izzie came and took the chair on Addison's other side, putting her hand on Addison's back, and Meredith gently pulled away. She dropped Addison's hand, and Izzie took it. Derek watched Meredith leave the room, saw the stoic look on her face and he knew that he had to follow.

"I'll bring the consent form," he said, his voice cracking. "Addison? I swear, we're going to do everything that we possibly can for him."

Addison nodded, and he knew that that was the most that he could do for her. She was no longer his to fix. So he sought out the one to whom he could offer comfort.

Meredith was sitting on the floor under the OR board, her forehead resting on her knees. Derek sank down next to her and listened for a second, to make sure that she was breathing evenly. She was prone to hyperventilation. Once he ascertained that she was, at least in this way, okay he gently pulled her against him. Her head fell into his lap, and he stroked her hair.

"It's not right, Derek," she said, her voice choked. "They don't deserve this."

"I know," he whispered. "It's not right. But we're going to all that we can for them. That is what we can do. We can do our best to make this right."

He knew what she was thinking, that even if Mark and Addison were once the cheating ones, so were they. That if it was them the couple would be doing all that they could. There were ties that, despite all the bad blood, somehow could not be broken. And knowing Meredith, she was thinking something else.

"Mer? If you're thinking that it should be you, don't. I know you, you never think you deserve all the wonderful things that you have, but you do. I love you, Lydia loves you, and you have a whole pack of people in this hospital that love you. So let's do the best we can, there's not enough time to lay blame."

Meredith sat up and sniffed, tears in her eyes that had not fallen. "Okay," she said. "I'm not even the one you should be comforting."

Derek shook his head. "Meredith Grey, you're mine. I can comfort you if I want."

She laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth. "We should go," she said. "Book an OR."

"I already told an intern to do it. They're prepping him now." She nodded, but stood anyway. He followed, but she went into the ladies' room, and he couldn't exactly follow her in there. From the hall he heard her retching, and he shifted uncomfortably, aware that the nurses were probably watching him, but he did not care.

When she came out her jaw was set. "I'm okay," she told him. He did not believe her, but he followed her to the scrub room without a word.

"Lyddie?" he asked, standing next to Meredith at the sink, determined not to look up as the scrub nurses did their jobs.

"At day-care. She has PT at two, so I'll take her upstairs."

"Okay," he agreed. It was good for them that Seattle Grace had excellent therapy programs. They had often been spoken to about doing things in Lyddie's "Natural Environment", but for Lydia Ellis Shepard-Grey the hospital was her natural environment. She ate lunch in the cafeteria with her parents, she slept in on-call rooms, she could always get cookies out of the nurses. She was the angel of the hospital.

Derek smiled as he thought of his daughter, downstairs in the day-care playing with blocks, or coloring. It gave him the strength to walk through the OR door.

"Dr. Grey will start us out," he said to the team.

Meredith stepped up to the table. "Okay, it's way to early in the morning to kill people, let's have some fun," she said, and there were murmurs of amusement from all of those around. Derek shook his head at her as she took a scalpel in her hand and move expertly in for the first cut.

The damage was more difficult to fix than he had originally thought, even with both of them working. Eventually, they got the bleeding stopped and Meredith repositioned the skull flap.

"I'll close," Derek told her, and she stepped back, letting him go in and delicately close the incision. Mark didn't like scars. Meredith watched him, and he knew that she understood. That was why they worked. They understood each other. It was natural.

They went together to see Addison, to tell her that the only thing to do now was wait. Then, without speaking about it, Meredith took Derek's hand and they went straight to the elevator and down to the daycare. The workers were surprised to see them, but Lydia's face lit up as Meredith took her in her arms.

"Go bye-bye?" she asked, her blue eyes lighting up.

Meredith looked at her watch. "Sure sweetheart, you can have lunch with Mommy and Daddy."

"Yes, but after that Mommy has to round on Daddy's patients," Derek teased, and Meredith wrinkled her nose at him. Lydia giggled and wrinkled her own small nose.

At their table in the cafeteria Cristina, George and Callie sat looking at their food morosely, but smiles brightened their faces when Meredith sat Lyddie down so that she could go get their food. Then Derek knew that things would be all right. Or he hoped so, anyway.

A/N So the amazing reviews for Serenity? Made my life. This is, by the way, considerable shorter than the chapters will be. They'll be I Wish I May length.


	2. Another Day in Paradise

Children's laughter echoed around the room of the enclosed pool at the Seattle YMCA close to Seattle Grace hospital. It was mid-April and warm enough outside that kids were coming there after school and young parents were bringing their children there to let them use up energy.

In the shallow end, one such young woman held onto the hands of a small, dark haired girl who had a swim-ring around her middle. "Mommy? Can I be a mermaid?" she asked, furrowing her brow as she thought about it.

Her mother laughed. "I don't think so sweetheart. Maybe for next Halloween? I think I would be sad if you went to live in Atlantis."

"Okay. I'll just be Ariel for Halloween. Can I dye my hair red?"

"Not until you go to college. Come on, we should probably get out so that we can get home before Daddy."

"Mommy?"

"Yes?"

"Daddy's over there," she pointed a small finger and her mother looked and smiled to see her husband crouching by the steps. She pulled the little girl over and slipped her out of the swim-ring.

"Thought I might find you two here," he said with a smile. "My two mermaids."

"Not 'til Halloween, Daddy!" the girl explained, with the air of someone far superior explaining things to a child. Not unlike the way her mother talked to the surgical interns underneath her at Seattle Grace.

He raised an eyebrow, and held open a towel as his wife handed the girl out of the pool. "Could you get her dressed, Derek?" she asked, quietly. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Sure," he agreed, scooping the giggling girl up. She was doing better at walking without support, but they never took chances on the slippery edges of the pool.

Meredith Grey sank back into the water and began to swim furiously. It was her way of working things out, of letting go of all the difficult things that she had faced at work. She was a sixth year resident now, receiving fellowship offers. Her fellowship was going to be in pediatric neurosurgery. She liked making the young lives better, of solving problems early, before they presented barriers.

It was just hard on days, like the one that she had just had, when they lost the child. Derek would have figured it out as soon as he heard what had happened. Her shift had ended before his, so she took Lyddie to the pool. It wasn't the first time. She was still touched by the fact that he had come here instead of waiting at home. She swam laps until she could finally get the image of the ten-year-old gymnast out of her head. There was a reason that interns usually spent the most time with their patients and surgeons the least.

She had come a long way from the days when she had been an intern, observing procedures and retracting constantly. Now she was the one ordering retraction and suction and watching the interns jump to obey her commands. She wasn't exactly the Neo-Nazi (that title went to her best friend Cristina Yang) but she was respected. The interns that thought she got special treatment because she was Dr. Shepard's wife were quickly put in their place.

She reached for the ladder and screamed when she pulled up to see Derek standing over her with a towel. Lyddie, dressed and leaning on her small, metal crutches laughed. Meredith pulled herself out of the pool and snatched the towel out of her husband's hands, sticking her tongue out at him.

"You think you're funny," she said, shaking her head. "Bur really, Derek, you're not. I know it must be disappointing to realize, but the truth hurts."

He kissed her cheek. "I need to keep you away from Cristina. Burke may like the snarkiness, but I'm none-too-fond of it."

"Did you seriously just say snarkiness? Is that even a word?"

"I said it, thus it's a word," Derek said, seriously, and she shook her head, her eyes focusing on Lyddie walking just in front of them.

"Lydia? You doing all right, sweetheart?"

"Yes, Mommy," Lydia called, carefully going down the steps to the locker room. She had just shifted to using the crutches nearly all the time, although they still had the child-sized wheelchair in the back of Meredith's jeep.

"I'm going to shower, okay? If you guys want to go on home, or whatever," she said, pulling her shampoo out of the locker in which she had stored it.

"That's okay," Derek said. "We'll wait outside. Come on, Lydia, I'll tell you about the surgery I had today."

"Was it a crane-i-onomy?"

"Craniotomy," Derek corrected automatically. "That was part of it." He looked up at Meredith, "That intern of yours, Dawson? He's got neuro-potential I think. Have you said anything to him?"

She shrugged. "I may have put the idea in his over-inflated head. Honestly, Derek, he's Alex pre-Izzie. But yeah, he does have the skills required." She rolled her eyes at the thought of the cocky intern she had been saddled with.

"You're cute when you're annoyed," Derek commented, picking Lydia up crutches and all and kissing Meredith on the cheek before he disappeared out of the room. She smiled to herself and climbed into the shower. The hot water poured over her and she relaxed. Her interns weren't bad, and she would only have them for a few more months. Then she would be a surgeon, on her own. She would be doing her fellowship. The thought was unreal.

All of the hospitals that had offered her a position were also offering high positions to Derek, but they preferred to stay at Seattle Grace, where they were comfortable and where they had the support of their not-so-conventional family. Izzie still lived in the townhouse, now with Alex, and paying rent. She, Derek and Lydia had moved into the house on Derek's property the summer before, and George and Callie were about to move out of the townhouse and into an apartment.

None of them had seriously considered leaving Seattle, although Cristina had received a great offer from Patience Hospital in New York City, Derek had decided to decline any offer of the chief position and so Burke was sure to get it. It was odd, Meredith thought, once she had considered Seattle as just another stop on the road of her life. After her residency and after other things had been taken care of she had thought that she would move on.

Now there was no where else she would rather be.

Her mother was still at Roseridge, it had been a long time since she was really lucid, but she was doing well enough. It was hard to see her that way, but Meredith took Lydia to see her whenever she could. There had been too long when her mother was shut out of her life.

She finished showering and changed clothes in the shower stall. From the locker she retrieved her purse and headed out to find her husband and daughter. They were sitting on a bench, watching a group of teenage boys play tennis. Lydia clapped her hands whenever one of them hit the ball, her green eyes sparkling.

"Ready to go, sweetie?" Meredith asked, running her fingers through the curly black hair.

"Can I ride with you, Mommy?" Lydia asked. "My Sandy's in Mommy's car," she explained to Derek, and he smiled.

"Well, if your doll is in there, I guess you should ride with her. I have a stop to make first anyway. I have to get groceries for dinner."

"You're cooking?" Meredith asked, as she opened the door to help Lydia climb into her car-seat.

"Oddly enough, I have no desire to be poisoned tonight," Derek commented, grinning. Meredith pulled her elbow back to hit him in the chest.

"Totally uncalled for," he reprimanded. "What kind of example are you setting for our beautiful little girl?"

"My cooking is not that bad, Derek," Meredith objected, trying to ignore the look that went between father and daughter. Somehow, at five, her daughter had perfected the placating look that Derek often used towards Meredith.

"No…. but the fire department called, they're going to lose our address."

"Derek Shepard, do you enjoy sleeping on the couch?" Meredith asked, closing Lydia's door and putting a hand on her hip.

"You know," he said. "You keep threatening that, and yet it never seems to work." He leaned in and kissed her, pushing her back against the driver's door.

"Talk about low blows," she murmured, with her lips against his. "Go do your shopping then, Emeril." She pushed him away gently, and raised an eyebrow at him. She saw the pained expression cross over his face, the one that was calculating just how many hours there were until Lydia would be in bed and the house would be theirs. Meredith smirked and ducked into the car.

"That, Lydia," she commented, "Is called mind-over-boy-parts." Lydia giggled, and Meredith flipped on the radio. Lydia hummed along with the 80s station and talked to her baby doll happily.

Meredith drove the familiar route back to their house, still resisting the automatic turns to get to her townhouse. When they pulled into the driveway she parked and smiled. This was how it was supposed to be. She unloaded Lydia who hurried into the house. As soon as she opened the door, the saved-from-the-pound golden retriever puppy, Spock ran between her legs and out onto the property. Meredith shook her head. He would be back.

"Can I go out and play with Spock? Lydia asked.

"How about not?" Meredith said. "It'll be dark soon. Why don't you take off your shoes and color a picture for Daddy?"

Obediently Lydia plopped down on the floor and took of her tennis shoes, followed by the braces that she wore on her legs. In the house it was easier for her to crawl or be carried, instead of working so hard to walk. Once she was older and had a little more stamina they would repeal that, but for now it was about pacing.

Meredith carried her into the kitchen and set her up with crayons, paper, and a cup of water before sitting down on the couch. It was a balancing act. There were days when one of the others took Lydia home if Meredith and Derek had a late shift, or when Lydia scampered around the hospital when any other child should have been at home. Her forts were in empty exam rooms, not on couches as most children. She knew the use of many medical supplies and had even hidden in galleries to watch surgeries.

She was quite obviously the daughter of two neurosurgeons.

"Mommy? Where's the indigo?"

Meredith sighed and stood up to go dig through the box of crayons and hope against hope that Spock hadn't eaten the color. It would not be the first time.

* * *

Cristina Yang walked quickly through the hospital towards the locker room, hoping that she would not run into Burke. Of course, he had the talent of always showing up when he was not wanted.

"Cristina? Is your shift over?"

"Um…. Yeah," Cristina said, stopping and turning to him.

"Have you thought any more about what we talked about?"

"Some, but you know, I had a three car pile up and I spent all day trying to teach the sub-nurses that an intubation tube is not the same as an IV tube so--."

He cut her off, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. You have plenty of time to think. Just think about it, okay? I'll be home by ten."

Cristina nodded and turned to go into the locker room and change. On her way to the car she flipped open her cell phone.

"Hello?"

"Mer? What are you doing?"

"Discussing the benefits of bird's egg blue versus ocean blue for the sky, why?"

_That right there is my problem,_ Cristina thought as she climbed onto her motorcycle. "Can I come by?"

"Sure. Derek's being Iron Chef tonight, so we won't be eating for a while."

"S'okay, you don't have to feed me, I just need to ask you something."

"You've made me curious. Come on up, you know Lydia would love to see you."

"'Kay, bye," Cristina said hurriedly, closing the phone and kicking on the motor. She didn't get to ride as much anymore, since she and Burke usually carpooled, but recently his schedule had changed. It was refreshing the weave through the streets, with the only thing to think about being balance, which came naturally, and not getting run over by any of the jackasses on the road.

The ride to Meredith's did not take long, and she was somewhat relieved to see that only Meredith's car was in the driveway. Their insane dog located her and was jumping all over the place as she cut the motor. "Down, Rover," Cristina grumbled. "Honestly, didn't they learn their lesson the first time?"

She went to the front door and opened it, not bothering to ring the doorbell. The mad dog ran in ahead of her and she heard Lydia cry out: "Spocky!" from the kitchen. She followed the sound of voices to find Meredith sitting at the island with a magazine and Lydia surrounded by paper and crayons.

"It looks like Hobby Lobby blew up in here," Cristina said, and Lydia whirled around on her chair.

"Aunt Cristina!" she cried, hurling herself out of the chair. Cristina caught her and allowed the child to hug her. Only Lydia.

"Hey kid," she said, smiling. "What are you doing?"

"Not playing outside," Lydia informed her. Cristina looked up to Meredith, giving her the _so your daughter_ look.

"More specifically?"

"Coloring a picture for Daddy." Cristina set the girl back into her chair.

"Looks good," she said, going over to Meredith.

"So, spill. What'd Burke do now?" Meredith was smirking, and Cristina wanted to leave right then and there, but she did not. Instead she went to Meredith's refrigerator, mourning the lack of liquor and grabbed a soda. She cracked the can open and pushed herself up on the counter next to the sink.

"He didn't _do_ anything. Just this morning, and he always does this in the morning when he _knows_ I'm not coherent. Anyway, this morning he brought up the 'c' word again."

"Cookie?" Lydia asked, intently, staring at them from her seat. Both women looked over at her.

"Lyddie, baby, why don't you go get Spock's food and put it in the bowl in the laundry room?"

Lydia slid onto the floor, giving them such a look that Cristina almost expected her to say 'I know when I'm not wanted'.

"Meredith? She is so your daughter. It's just a little bit scary."

Meredith sighed. "I know. Derek says if it weren't for her hair he would think that I could asexually reproduce. Well, he always says that after a forty-eight hour shift when we haven't had sex in a while, but still. Oh no, you are so not changing the subject. Burke brought up kids again?"

Cristina swallowed a mouthful of Coke. "Yeah."

"And?" Meredith said, going over to the counter to put the crayons back in the box.

"And what?" Cristina said.

"And, what did you say?"

"I said I needed to think. I mean, I do. Need to think."

"It's a big decision," Meredith said wisely. "Or it would have been," she amended, "If I'd actually had a decision to make…." She trailed off pensively.

"Mer? We're talking about me now," Cristina reminded her. "I just don't think I have the Mommy-gene, you know? You do. You do the cleaning up, and the kissing and the tucking in thing."

"It's not a gene," Meredith said. "I mean, let's face it, I never had the best role-model…. Actually, I take that back. My mother was a very good mommy when she was around. It was mom she wasn't so great at. Does that make sense?"

"Not really," Cristina said.

Meredith sat down. "My mother was very good at taking care of people. Once Daddy left she went into damage-control mode. She became a mommy. A good one. But then, as I got older, she missed a step. The step where you gradually let go. When I was about twelve or thirteen we become just people living in the same house. She worked more, thinking I was old enough to be on my own. But I wasn't, not really. But hey, we're talking about you here," she said, attempting to brighten her voice, but Cristina wasn't fooled. She noticed the way Meredith had sank into the past, calling her father 'Daddy', her eyes unfocused.

"Mer-."

"No. We're not talking about me.

"Cristina, I think that you would be a good mother. We can all help you with the mommy bit, and really it comes naturally. You do what you have to do. Before Lyddie the most I knew about disabilities was the medical terms and symptoms. Now I can navigate her services with my eyes closed, as well as bandage an ouch with only a band-aid, no scalpel required." Meredith smiled. "Easy, it's not. There are days when I'm so tired I literally can't think.

"Once, Derek drove home and I fell asleep in the car and did not wake up until the next morning. He brought me inside, put me in my pajamas, put Lyddie to bed and I never even moved. But it's worth it. Whenever Lydia smiles, or uses a phrase I know she got from me, or tells George he's such a woman…." Cristina laughed. "Kids don't care if you make mistakes; they care if you love them. You love Lyddie, and she's my kid. You're better at the supportive thing than you think, you know. I mean, hello, you're my best friend."

Cristina nodded slowly, and Meredith smiled.

"Is he talking about having kids or--."

"No. Adopting. He knows, our careers, and he's afraid. You know Burke, he gets all paranoid if I so much as catch a cold, and no matter how many times Izzie tells him that the chances of it happening again…." She shrugged.

"Better safe than sorry," Meredith said, wisely and then laughed. "Since when have I thought that?"

"Since you birthed a Disney princess?" Cristina suggested.

"Hey, Ariel is _not_ your ordinary princess," Meredith said in defense. "And I think it's a phase." At that moment the first notes of "Under the Sea" came from the living room, and Cristina raised an eyebrow.

"Lydia?" Meredith called. "What are the DVD player rules?"

"Oops. Mommy, can I watch Ariel?"

"Ex post facto, but yes you can. Ask first next time!"

"Okay!"

"Is she reading your textbooks yet?" Cristina asked. It was a joke, because once when she was three Lydia had gone into Meredith's office and stared raptly at the pictures in Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body for two hours.

"No, but her favorite bedtime story is A Visit to the Sesame Street Hospital. Does that mean anything? She can almost read it by herself."

"I thought you were reading her Austen."

"I am. Derek reads her picture books. She can't go into kindergarten sounding like Elizabeth Bennett all the time."

"Oh, so you do want her to make friends under thirty?" Cristina said, and Meredith scowled at her.

"Don't judge," she said. "Your kid will probably be the next Doogie Houser."

"You watched that, didn't you?"

"Only to mock it. I grew up in a hospital, remember?"

"Am I the only one out of our year who never watched that? Even Evil Spawn admits to it."

Before Meredith could reply the front door open.

"The man is home from foraging," Meredith whispered and Cristina laughed as Derek came in loaded down with groceries, Lydia attached to his leg. Meredith went to help him unload, as he set Lydia on the island so she could pull items out of the bag.

"Noodles!" she cried in delight. "Are we having spaghetti?"

"When did she learn how to pronounce that?" Meredith asked, pulling out a jar of spaghetti sauce. "I was seven before I could say that right."

Cristina coughed. "I may have had something to do with eliminating the word 'pasketti' from your five-year-old's vocabulary," she admitted.

"Is it weird that it's taken me a full three minutes to realize that Cristina Yang is sitting on our kitchen?" Shepard asked as he poured water into a saucepan.

"Probably not," Meredith told him. "Am I allowed to toss a salad, or will I somehow cause the lettuce to wilt?"

"Probably not." He looked over at Cristina, "Watch her to make sure she doesn't put mayo on it instead of dressing."

"I never actually did that," Meredith grumbled as Cristina snickered.

"Only because Alex grabbed the jar," Cristina pointed out. The time they were referring to was a dinner they had had when Meredith and Derek first moved into the house. Burke had cooked most of it, but everyone had pitched in. Since Meredith went crazy seeing people doing so much work in her house they had let her make the salad. And she had almost put mayonnaise in it.

"Shut up," Meredith said, as she began chopping carrots. "Are we feeding you after all?"

Cristina shrugged. "Do you mind? Burke wants to have you all over next weekend for dinner."

"Okay. I think we're both off on Saturday," Meredith said. "Whoa, Lydia Ellis freeze and let me help you!"

Lydia had been silently sliding down towards the stool under the island in an attempt to get down. Meredith guided her gently to the floor.

"Lydia, ma belle, tu dois demander pour quelqu'un t'aider," Cristina chastised in French. Lydia shrugged.

"Makes me wish I'd paid more attention in high school French," Shepard grumbled.

"You wanted me to help you make sure your child had language exposure," Cristina pointed out. "S'not my fault she's practically Parisian."

"Tu es culpable, completement," Meredith said, with a smirk. She had learned French in college, but not as much as Cristina whose second major had been French literature. Derek, however, could barely order a meal in Spanish.

"English, por favor," he said, with a sigh.

Meredith smiled and handed him the jar of Oregano. "Bella," she said and he rolled his eyes.

Lydia looked back and forth between the adults from her spot holding onto the edge of the counter a smile on her small pink lips. Cristina had to admit, she was adorable.

"If you two do have kids," Meredith said, "our kids are never going to speak English to each other…."

"Are you having kids?" Shepard asked and Cristina glared at Meredith who sheepishly popped a cherry tomato into her mouth.

"Maybe. Don't mention it to Burke. I know you two are now fishing buddies which freaks me out, but don't mention it to him. We haven't really decided."

Shepard nodded as the water came to a boil.

* * *

Derek never really minded the constant houseguests. Meredith was always happy when her friends were around, and he was surprised to find that he got along well with them, even if most were several years younger than him. His wife was their age, after all. Still, that night he had a slight feeling of disappointment when he noticed Cristina perched on the counter. She had not lingered after dinner, though, and as he listened to her motorcycle speed off into the distance he turned to his family.

Meredith was loading the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, and Lydia was helpfully arranging the silverware in the dishwasher tray. He smiled and went over, putting his arms around Meredith's waist. She leaned back against him, her head resting gently on his shoulder.

"What do you say we get the little one into bed?" he said quietly, as Lydia had her face licked by Spock.

"Sounds good to me," Meredith murmured. "Lydia, bath time."

"But Mommy, I went swimming!"

"Yes," Meredith agreed, "But you also are letting germy old Spock lick your face."

"Spock's not old, Mommy. He's a puppy."

Derek laughed as Meredith picked Lydia up to carry her to the stairs. Derek followed.

"Do I have to?" Lydia asked, as Meredith set her down in front of the stairs in the hallway.

"Grace said you had to practice stairs, sweetheart," Meredith said gently. "Just to the landing, okay? Then Mommy will carry you."

"No," Derek interjected, "Daddy will carry you. Mommy looks tired."

"I'm all right," Meredith murmured distractedly as she climbed up backwards to be in front of Lydia as she pulled her body up the first step. Derek stood behind to catch her if she slipped.

It was difficult to watch the little girl fight her muscles to lift herself up each step, but they had both listened to the therapist tell them that it would help, and had seen with their own eyes how much progress she had made over the years.

"Halfway there, baby," Meredith encouraged as Lydia grimaced on the fifth step. "You're doing so well!"

"Okay," Lydia murmured, and Derek fought the urge to scoop her up and put her on his shoulders. Meredith was better at this, at the pushing just enough part. After what seemed like forever she made it to the landing and her small face broke out into a grin. "I did it!"

Meredith hugged her and kissed her fiercely, just before Derek lifted her up and put her on his shoulder to bound the rest of the way up the stairs. She giggled and laced her small fingers into his hair. "Yay, horsey!" she cried.

Meredith drew her bath while Derek helped her take off the small pink sweater and jeans. She grabbed onto the handrails that he had had specially installed to walk by herself to the bathroom, beaming as she did it even though she had been using them since they moved into the house. Once she was in the bathtub Meredith sat on the toilet directing the washing while Derek sat against the door, attempting, to little avail, to avoid getting splashed.

After ten minutes or so Lydia let out a huge yawn.

"Dunk your head, kiddo," Meredith said. "It's almost time to get out."

Lydia sighed dramatically, but ducked under the water. Meredith glanced at Derek as she slid down to shampoo Lydia's hair. "She gets the drama queenness from you," she accused, and he raised an eyebrow. "Okay. Maybe not," Meredith conceded.

"Is queenness a word?" Derek asked, teasingly as Meredith squirted Johnson & Johnson's shampoo on her outstretched palm.

"It is now," she said. "Head back Lyddie."

Once Lydia was dry and in pajamas it was time for her to choose her bedtime story reader. Usually it was just whoever was home, but tonight she had a choice.

"Is Binggy in the next chapter?" she asked her mother seriously from the edge of her pink-covered bed.

"No," Meredith said, obviously trying not to smile.

"Okay. I want Mommy tonight."

"She wants Mommy tonight," Meredith repeated, smiling and picking up Pride and Prejudice.

_Unbelievable,_ Derek thought as he kissed Lydia good night. "Good night, my angel. Love you to the moon and back."

"I love you too, Daddy," Lydia said, happily sliding under the covers.

Meredith smiled at him, slipping off her shoes and getting into the bed next to Lydia, "'Elizabeth, as they drove along, waited for the first appearance of Pemberly woods with some perturbation…."

Derek gently closed the door and headed back down the stairs. Spock waited at the bottom, wagging his tail. "Pride and Prejudice? The kid's five," Derek said to the dog. "And yet, she's still too young for Harry Potter."

He laughed to himself and went into the living room to wait for Meredith. She came down five minutes later, smiling.

"Out like a light," she said. "Although she tried valiantly to stay awake until Mr. Darcy appeared on the scene."

Derek shook his head. "Does she even understand it?"

Meredith shrugged. "I guess it's like a kid watching a PG-13 movie. A lot of it goes right over their heads, but they like the story. She obviously understands it if she prefers it to Green Eggs and Ham."

"Except that she can read that one," Derek pointed out as Meredith snuggled against him on the couch. She smelled like Lydia's shampoo, and it was sweet.

"Details," Meredith said, with a smile. "She's doing so well, Derek. It amazes me."

"I know," he said, kissing her. "You're doing a great job, Mer."

"We're doing a great job," she corrected, with a smile.

He smiled back, loving the light in her eyes.

"It's too quiet here," Meredith sighed, after a minute. "I mean, without George or Izzie yelling about something…. Not that I'm wanting us to open up for boarders or anything, but…." She trailed off.

"I know of one solution to that," Derek said, huskily, moving his lips to her neck.

"Are you saying….?" she asked, the question ending in a gasp.

"We can't let Burke get ahead of us. I'm very competitive," Derek murmured, as he teasingly ran a finger down her side. "And Lydia does want a baby brother or sister."

"Lydia….also…wants….a….hamster," Meredith pointed out in gasps as he finally slipped his hands under her shirt.

"We can't have nearly as much fun with that one," Derek pointed out, before pressing his mouth against hers and letting his hands slide down to the button on her jeans. "They bite," he added, nipping gently at her earlobe

Meredith moaned in agreement and put her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his.

"Patience, love," he said, gently, but then she ran her tongue across the side of his neck and he did not have nearly as much patience. Her small fingers were nimbly unbuttoning his shirt when the doorbell rang.

"Don't answer it," Meredith groaned. "Please Derek."

"It's probably one of your insane followers," he pointed out, gently sliding her shirt down. "Izzie's probably pushed Alex off of the Space Needle."

"He'll live, he's a hard head," Meredith grumbled sitting up.

"If it is one of yours, we'll get rid of them quickly. I'll find a knife or something," Derek said, as he went to the foyer. Meredith muttered something that sounded like 'I'm perfectly fine with being an accomplice' as she turned on the living room light.

Derek straightened his clothes as he went to the door, Meredith following, looking so dejected that he almost laughed at her. When he opened the door Derek's smile faded and Meredith said, "Addison."

A/N Review! In My Daughter's Eyes will be updated when I finish the next chapter of it…. Soonish!


	3. I Just Want To Be Mad

**Chapter Two**

Meredith's hands were shaking as she walked around the kitchen making tea. She was making tea for her husband's ex-wife who had just appeared on their doorstep. The irony did not escape her. The irony was made worse by the fact that she showed up just before she and Derek were about to have sex for the first time in two god-damned weeks. Meredith was not amused. If it weren't for the incredibly serious look on Addison's face her annoyance would have been anger. But worry kept the annoyance from being anger.

"Is it Mark?" Derek was asking as Meredith reentered the living room.

Addison sipped her tea and shook her head. "No. No problems there. No change either," she added; a hint of bitterness in her voice. Meredith glanced away from her, she understood this pain.

Mark Sloan had not recovered from the car accident three years before. He was PVS, diagnosed by Derek himself. Addison still could not let go, clinging even harder than she had clung to her marriage. Now the shell of the man who had once been Seattle Grace's best plastic surgeon had a room in the same home as Meredith's mother.

"Addie, there's not going to be change--" Derek started to say, but Meredith put a hand on his arm. He had had this battle before with the woman, once so against keeping patients on life support. Meredith could tell that Addison was not here for that.

"What is it?" Meredith asked gently, folding Derek's hand into hers.

Addison looked away from them, at the pictures displayed on the mantelpiece; pictures which documented the past five years of their family. "I'm sorry to bother you like this," she began, smoothing her plaid skirt nervously. "But I didn't know where else to go." She took a breath and looked back at them, although she seemed to be meeting only Derek's eyes. "l just got back from New York. Derek, I went to see Lauren. Professionally".

Derek drew in a breath and shifted, but Meredith was confused. "Who?" she asked Derek. He didn't seem to hear her.

"She confirmed something that I suspected. I have breast cancer."

The words hung in the air, neither Derek nor his wife knowing what to say. Finally Addison broke the silence. "I wouldn't have come to you, but I need a favor. I don't want anyone to know. I'm going to take a leave of absence and get treated in New York I just need someone to go with me, at least for the surgery. I don't want to bother anyone there. None of them understand about Mark, think they blame me for dragging him down here. I thought since you're familiar with the city. .."she trailed off. Meredith's mind was racing.

She had avoided contact with Addison as much as possible over the years, going as far as having interns go to her to request consults. Nor she was in Meredith's living room asking her husband to fly across the country with her. Yes, she had an incredibly valid reason, but it still put Meredith on the edge.

"We'll have to --. "she began to say, just as Derek said: "Of course ".

Meredith looked at him in shock. And was about to very strongly suggest they go to the kitchen when Lydia called out from her bedroom. "I'll go to her;" Meredith said, standing and walking behind Derek so that she wouldn't have to look at him. "Addison, I am truly sorry that this is happening to you." Addison nodded and Meredith headed towards the stairs.

"Mommy!" Lydia called and Meredith took the stairs two at a time. The girl's room was dark; her night light had gone out. Meredith nearly fell over a misplaced shoe, but righted herself quickly.

"Mommy's here, sweetheart," she murmured, sinking onto her knees by the bed. Lydia reached out for her, her arms going around Meredith's neck and her face buried in her shoulder. "It's okay, baby" Meredith soothed, rubbing her back, even though it wasn't really okay.

5he held Lydia to her until the child stopped crying. Even after her breathing became steady and she was obviously asleep Meredith held her, because that was something she could do.

After closing Lydia's door she cored not bring herself to go back downstairs, so she went and sat on her bed, attempting to figure out what was wrong with her. A friend was in need, what was the issue? If it were George or Izzie or Cristina. _It's not though,_ a voice in the back of her mind said, _it's Addison_. That was the issue. This wasn't like when Mark was injured and she and Derek could work together to fix it, this was his ex-wife coming to him for help.

Meredith did not want to admit it, but it scared her.

After a few minutes of sitting in her bedroom in the dark she heard the front door open and close and then the sound of Derek's footsteps on the stairs.

"Is she okay?" he asked, referring to Lydia.

Meredith nodded.

"I guess it wouldn't work to say 'Let's pick up where we left off'?" he said heavily, leaning in the doorway.

Meredith shook her head, not looking at him.

"Can you talk to me?" he asked, stepping into the room and closing the door, before flipping on the light.

She looked up at him, knowing that hurt showed on her face. "I know you want to help her. I want to help her. I just think we should have discussed it first. This is horrible, and scary, and you and I are the married ones now. We talk about things, Derek!"

He ran a hand over his face and looked up at the ceiling. "I know," he said. "I should have checked with you before I agreed like that. My mind wasn't working, you know? She said that and I just reacted like…." He was obviously searching for the way to say it

"Like I had said it," Meredith finished, sounding defeated and looking away again.

"No!" he said sharply, sharp enough to make her finally meet his eyes. "If you had said that, Meredith, if you had told me that you had cancer I would not have been able to think, or move, or do anything. My world would stop." His voice went tender and she suddenly felt relief wash over her. "But Mer, you should have realized that. We've been married for five years, I love you. That's not going to change if Addison figures a little bit more prominently in our lives!" He stood across the room from her, staring hard at her. "You've got to trust me!"

"I do trust you!" she insisted. "I trust you! I just…. Freak out. You know that, Derek. I'm not proud of it. Sometimes a very small part of me feels like someone is going to show up and take all of this away from me. The first time that did happen and it just happened to be Addison who caused it."

She felt hot tears behind her eyes but now was not the time to cry. If she cried he would come over and hold her and it would be perfect. "So, I'm sorry if when she comes here looking for help I don't immediately leap at the chance to let you accompany her across country. I feel for her, you know I don't think she deserves that, that anyone does. I just…. I don't know. I don't know how to not sound like a horrible person." She suddenly felt vulnerable, with him standing and her sitting on the bed, but if she stood that could be seen as offering a challenge.

"You're not a horrible person, Meri."

"Don't." she said harshly. "Only Dad calls me that."

"Sorry. You're not a horrible person. I understand, I do. I think we're both just over-reacting because of the shock of what's just happened."

"Don't patronize me. Now is not the time for patronizing. I' m not Lydia, Derek; I understand the gravity of this situation. I understand that a colleague of mine who I very much respect has a horrible disease which she is about to attempt to hide from her friends and came to us for help. What I cannot get past is that she came to you for help, and you are her ex-husband."

"Meredith, nothing's going to happen. My going to New York with Addison will not change one single solitary thing with us. Our family, you, me and Lydia will not be affected. I would never do anything to compromise our relationship Meredith."

He took a cautious step closer, and when she did not react he sat on the bed next to her. Harsh words came into her mind: _You did it to Addison,_ or _If you're sure you've really chosen_, but she did not speak them. She allowed him to put his arm around her and draw her to him.

"Meredith Grey, you are my life," he said, into her hair. "Okay?"

"Okay, " she agreed, but there was still a lingering sense that this was not over. They went to bed, love-making having lost its moment. He put his arms around her as was natural, but she did not lean back into him. Her hand went under her head and her eyes stayed open as she thought about what had happened. She was afraid, like she had not been in a long time.

When she finally went to sleep a nightmare came to her. The bomb. The explosion. She awoke shaking, Derek holding her tightly.

"Like mother, like daughter," he said sleepily, wiping her tears with his fingers and kissing her cheek. She smiled, despite her worry and kissed him.

"Have I ever said thank you?" she asked, in a whisper, her eyes only half open.

"For what?" he yawned, one hand tracing circles on her upper arm.

"This. The holding me after the dreams, the just being there. I used to thank you. I don't want it to be habit. Because it means something to me every time."

Derek smiled and nuzzled her shoulder. "That's my Meredith," he said. "I love you. And you're welcome."

"I love you too, Derek," she said, meaning it with every fiber of her being. He smiled contentedly and soon fell back asleep, but she lay awake again. Wondering.

"Dr. Stevens!" Chief Webber called, as Izzie headed to board the elevator. She turned around and smiled at the chief.

"Yes?" she said, brightly.

"I wanted to ask you, has Addison Montgomary said anything to you lately about taking a leave of absence?"

Izzie shook her head, puzzled. "No. I mean, she went on a trip last week, and I haven't seen her yet today, but--."

"Well, she came to me this morning to say she was going to take a six month leave, and start taking her personal time today. Very unlike her. I'll be relying on you to keep the department going," he said, firmly and she nodded, swallowing. She had always felt uneasy around the chief since he let her come back. "Is there something going on with Sloan?" he asked, quietly.

"I…. I don't know. I don't think so. I was there visiting Ellis Grey last week, and the nurses said there was no change in Mark. That there hasn't been for some time."

The chief nodded and sighed. "Okay. Well, knowing Addison, she has her reasons."

"I'm sure she'll tell someone, eventually," Izzie replied, making a note to go by Addison's condo when she got off.

"Yes, well. As I said, I'm counting on you Stevens. Don't let me down." The chief then swept off, leaving Izzie feeling seriously uneasy.

She went back down the hall to the elevator. When the doors opened, Meredith was there, leaning against a back wall looking exhausted. "Late night?" Izzie asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. Well, not the way you're thinking, unfortunately. We got interrupted…." She trailed off, and then shut her mouth tightly. "What was that about, with the chief?"

Izzie shrugged, "Apparently Addison is taking off for six months, effective immediately. Have you heard anything?"

"About Addison, no, why should I have heard anything about Addison? I don't talk to her, remember?"

She said all of this quickly, as if she were hiding something. Izzie wanted to pry, but they arrived on her floor too soon for that. "I'll see you later," she said.

"Yeah. I may go by the nursery. I'm illin'," Meredith said, with a small smile. Izzie was about to say something about the fact that she could provide her own drugs, if Derek were willing, but the elevator door closed. Plus, something about the way that Meredith said they got interrupted made her not want to go there.

She always went to the nursery early in the morning to relieve worried parents, and hopefully release babies as early as possible. She remembered the anxiety that Meredith had gone through waiting for Lydia to be released. Addison had always done the same thing, but Izzie liked to think that she had also learned it from her own experience.

Izzie was no longer in her residency having started her fellowship in neo-natal with a specialization in disabilities that appeared at birth. She was very obviously influenced by her best friend's daughter, but it had the added bonus of giving her more time with the babies in the nursery. She preferred that to being with their mothers.

Alex passed her in the corridor and smiled, she smiled back and winked at him. They were on again, although Cristina tended to refer to it as "horny again". That wasn't really true, Izzie knew that they both had underlying issues. They were working on it. It was getting better. Their last off again had only lasted a week.

She smiled as she entered the NICU to check on her most fragile patients. The nurses nodded at her as she went to the first isolette where a tiny birdlike baby lay staring at her solemnly.

"Hey there," she cooed to him, sticking one hand into the isolette to stroke his arm. "How are you doing today little guy? Any miracles to share with me?"

"He's stable," a nurse replied, coming by with the baby's chart. "He just needs to gain a few ounces to graduate to the nursery." Izzie nodded, smiling at the baby. They needed a very personal touch when they were so little. It was an incentive.

At that second an alarm went off across the room. A baby had stopped breathing. Izzie rushed over to the insert a needle into the little one's collapsed lung. It was natural, auto-pilot for her to do things like that, the babies became patients in an instant.

We lost the Engle's baby last night," a nurse reported, standing at her elbow as Izzie slowly withdrew her stethoscope. She turned to check the baby's IV line and nodded sadly. "Dr. Peterson spoke to the parents." Izzie nodded again, moving across the room to check on another little one. They had expected the death of that poor baby, but she had still hoped.

"Okay," Izzie said, putting her stethoscope around her neck. "I'll be taking on Dr. Montgomary's neo-natal patients, I'll need someone to brief me on them when I get back from the nursery."

The nurse looked startled, but she nodded. Izzie ran her finger along the arm of the baby she was checking on one last time and headed out the door. In the nursery, she made the same proclamation and found Dr. Peterson giving him the majority of Addison's adult patients. No one questioned her. In the past five years she had become Addison Montgomary's protégé, and thus someone who you did not question. It wasn't something she milked, necessarily, but it did have its advantages.

She liked giving parents good news. It was the one time with adult contact did not bother her, outside of the delivery room. She released two babies who had been there longer than normal that morning, and four other newborns. One mother sat in a chair next to a bassinet, looking exhausted.

"Melanie?" Izzie said, gently, crouching by the woman, "It's okay to go sleep. We've got her here. It's why we exist."

The young woman nodded but didn't move. Izzie smiled and continued with her exams. When she looked up from checking one baby's heart rate she saw Meredith standing at the very edge of the nursery window. Izzie waved to her, but Meredith drew back almost as if she had been caught at something. She looked like Lydia when she had been caught eavesdropping at the top of the stairs. Izzie shrugged and turned back to the baby.

She had changed since she restarted her residency, she knew, being a surgeon wasn't always easier, but she was better at handling it. She had finally earned respect among the staff, mostly due to Addison, and she was told that she was good at her job.

An intern, one of George's, came to find her when she was on her way to get coffee before her scheduled surgeries began.

"Dr. Stevens? I was told to update you on Dr. Montgomary's neo-natal cases."

"Okay," Izzie said, checking her watch, "Can you walk and talk?"

"Um… yes," the intern said, shuffling charts.

"Okay, go," Izzie directed, and the intern began as Izzie made a beeline for the coffee. She was beginning to understand Cristina's love of power.

Almost as soon as she got her coffee she felt her pager go off. It seemed that her ten o'clock had come in a little early. In labor.

"Okay, Dr. Sussez, let's see if you can operate and talk," she said flashing a smile at the intern while racing for the elevator.

Momentarily stunned the intern was rooted to the spot for a second before running after her. Interns were so much fun to play with.

Once the surgeries were over, she went into the cafeteria to get lunch. Cristina was in the line and they started to walk together to their table.

Meredith, Derek and Lydia sat at one, and Izzie paused to watch them. Lydia was chatting animatedly as always, blue finger paint on her forehead. Neither of her parents was speaking, but they seemed to be having a conversation anyway. McDreamy was making puppy dog eyes at Meredith who was steadfastly giving him a very obvious 'not now' look and not noticing that all of Lydia's vegetables were finding their way onto her plate.

"Trouble in paradise?" Alex asked, coming up next to them. Izzie shrugged.

"I was over there last night and it seemed like they were just waiting for me to leave before they tore each other's clothes off and did it like rabbits," Cristina murmured. Izzie snickered as Meredith looked up.

"Gee, Mer," Cristina smiled as the three sat down. "I didn't know that you liked sprouts so much."

George was puzzled. No, George was actually very confused. It was a day off that he shared with Callie and they had planned to go look at apartments. However, in the ten minutes it had taken him to get up, go to the bathroom and get dressed his door had been locked.

That didn't normally happen in the townhouse, the reason for the very well enforced knocking rule. He hadn't knocked, of course, because when he left there had only been Callie in the room half asleep. Plus, Alex and Izzie were both at the hospital.

"Callie?" he called, "The door's locked." There was no answer, and he jiggled the doorknob, "Callie?"

"Go away, George," she called, sounding strangely angry.

"Callie? Are you getting dressed? We have to go in, like, fifteen--."

"I'm not going anywhere today! You don't want me to go anywhere with you today!"

Confused was no longer the word. Baffled worked pretty well.

"Yes I do. I want to go look at apartments with you today."

"No you don't!" Callie all but shrieked and George was seriously taken aback.

"Callie."

"Please George, just go," Callie murmured, apparently directly behind the door.

Not knowing what else to do, George backed away. "I'll be downstairs, okay? If you need anything," he turned and went down the stairs. He collapsed in a chair at the table and put his head in his hands, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Five years they had lived together. They'd fought, even broken up once just before Lydia's third birthday. Sometimes he thought that it was ridiculous of them to persevere in a relationship that had started as a rebound and a need for companionship. Then Callie would smile and kiss him playfully and he would forget these doubts. Somehow it just worked.

Now they had agreed to get out of Meredith's townhouse, to go somewhere more theirs and more permanent. Izzie could easily afford the bills now, and Alex was around most of the time. Meredith had spoken of renting the place out to interns, but then Cristina had brought up Doctorpalooza and she had thought better of it.

Cristina and Burke had shared an apartment for years, and they had only gotten married six months before, so really he and Callie weren't doing much commitment wise. She had just been in a strange mood over the past couple of days. Maybe, he realized, she needed her meds tweaked. Surprisingly, since he was a doctor, it always took him a long time to come to that type of conclusion. It had happened before, but he never remembered her funks being quite this bad. Whatever, if it was now was not the time to talk to her, he knew.

He reached for the phone and dialed the real estate agent's number to reschedule. Even if Callie did get up soon, it wouldn't be in time. They didn't have another day off together for almost two weeks. After hanging up, he got up from the kitchen and went into the living room to turn on the TV.

It was too quiet in the house. It had been crowded for a while, with the Shepard-Grey family, George, Callie and Izzie, but it had been nice. Friday (aka whatever day the most people had off) night dinners at Meredith's were just not the same. He missed Lydia and her antics, and Meredith's issues; even Shepard, sometimes. He had never quite gotten over his disdain for the man, but Meredith was happy with him. That was what mattered, as Izzie constantly reminded him.

There was absolutely nothing on the TV he realized as he flipped past The Price is Right for the fifth time. He picked up a magazine that was lying on the coffee table, but he somehow could not bring himself to be interested in the sordid affairs of celebrities. He was just about to try to go upstairs and convince Callie to come down again when he heard a crash and a scream.

He lunged towards the stairs and took them two at a time, thinking that he had thought that he was done with emergencies like these when Meredith and Lydia had moved out. The door to his bedroom was still locked, and he threw his weight against it, it took several tries before the frame splintered enough for him to get through the door. He'd owe Meredith for that, he supposed.

Once he got into the room he surveyed the scene around him. A broken lamp lay on the floor, under the window. It was the lamp from the bedside table, and lit looked as if it had been yanked out of the wall. He did not see Callie at first, but stepping over to the bed he nearly fell over her, where she was curled in a ball on the floor, sobbing.

He dropped to his knees by her, gently putting his arms around her and drawing her to him. She fought a little, but he held her firmly.

"Callie, it's okay. I've got you. We'll take care of this okay?"

She shook against him, more than he had ever felt someone shake before, and eventually he felt her body just give out under his hold, and he gently pushed her back, seeing that her eyes had closed. Gently he pulled her up and on to the bed, before turning to clean up the mess on the floor. One thing at a time. He cleaned up the glass and then turned to the rest of the room, which was somewhat destroyed. He picked up clothes that had been thrown on the floor, and nearly went as far as to vacuum, except that Callie was asleep.

He eventually climbed onto the bed next to her, putting his arms gently around her, so that she would feel safe when she awoke. The only thing in the room that seemed out of place was the door, hanging pitifully on its hinges. It was the only sign that something was just not right.

Meredith really, really just wanted to sleep. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and she had a forty-eight hour shift. This meant that at six she would go downstairs, get Lydia, and feed her dinner in the cafeteria. The girl would be put to bed in an on-call room as her mother roamed the halls doing last minute checks on patients, and then she would attempt to sleep. Derek would wander in after the ER had quieted down, but then one of them would be paged, waking up Lydia….

Sleep really did not happen when they were both on-call. So she was ducking into an on-call room when she did not have any surgeries scheduled to try to get an hour or so of sleep in before she collapsed. She hadn't seen Derek since lunch, when she had left him sitting there with her friends to wash up Lyddie before sending her back to day-care. She knew that he would try to follow, but Alex had engaged him in a conversation about some fishing tournament. Meredith was grateful for that.

She avoided him for the rest of the day, not because she was angry, exactly, she just had to think. Thinking didn't happen when he was silently pleading with her over a patient's head. She had escaped to the on-call room at a moment when he was finishing up a craniotomy, leaving an intern to check on her post-ops.

She lay on the bottom bunk, staring up at the mattress above her, trying to relax enough to sleep. Usually when she was uptight like this it was over a patient, or an argument with Cristina and Derek would be there, his firm hands on her shoulders, rubbing out the tension. He was such a fixture in her life now, had been for five years, that this day had been hell.

And then, the door opened. Meredith cursed herself for not having locked it, but she preferred having whoever needed her shake her awake to having the door being banged on incessantly. She rolled over, to face the wall, listening to the squeak of his shoes on the tile, and the click as the door closed.

"Mer?" he said, gently, sitting on the bunk, and placing one hand on her back.

"Don't," she muttered, into the pillow, attempting to get away from him.

"Meredith, what is it? We were fine last night, why the sudden change?"

Meredith sighed, and shifted to face him. "Hmm. I dunno, Derek, let me think. Oh yeah, you happened to mention over breakfast that you're leaving next week for Addison's surgery. Have you forgotten what happens next week? What I've been stressing over for three months now?"

Derek's eyes widened and he ran a hand through his hair. "Oh," he sighed. "That."

"Yeah, that," Meredith said, angrily. "My observation period for my fellowship applications."

"But it's for Sacramento right?"

"And Seattle Grace!"

"Like Richard needs to observe you. And you don't want to go to Sacramento!"

"That is _so_ not the point," Meredith said. "It's like a college essay, you try your best on all of them, even your safety schools, because who knows what could happen!"

"Don't you think that's exaggerating a little?" Meredith pushed up on her elbow to shoot a retort at him, but he held up a hand. "No, sorry, you're right. I should have thought. I'll take care of getting a Lydia-sitting schedule, don't worry. You won't have to do anything. I'll talk to Izzie, George and Cristina for you." He spoke gently, obviously trying to make amends, and she lay back.

"Okay," she murmured. "But it's not the same."

"As what?" he asked, gently sliding down next to her. There wasn't much room on the bunk, but she shifted over to give him space, a gesture of forgiveness.

She looked away, towards the opposite wall. "As having you there with me."

He sighed and kissed her neck. She arched into his touch, even if a part of her did not want to, and he began sliding his lips down. She allowed it, as he gently removed her scrub-shirt, planting kisses on her belly. As he played teasingly with the tie on her pants she ran a hand through his hair, and then her pants were off and his tongue was doing things that were achingly familiar and then she could not be angry at him any more, could not think coherently enough to be angry. All she could do was lay back and let her husband love her.

He left the on-call room first, when his pager went off. It woke Meredith, but she managed to fall asleep again, until she was paged as well. Groggily she put her scrubs back on and went into the hallway. Cristina was leaning against the nurses' station, and Izzie held a cup of coffee in one hand as she filled in a chart. Meredith smirked at them as she distinctly saw the words 'like rabbits' form on Cristina's lips.

A/N Review please!


	4. Say That You Love Me

**Chapter Three**

Cristina lingered outside of the OR, a soda in her hand, waiting for Burke to finish with a biopsy. It was normally a surgery covered by George, or another resident, but Burke sometimes liked to do the simpler surgeries. To prove that he still could, or something else stupid like that. She watched as he smiled to himself in the scrub room and removed his scrub-cap. It seemed like such a long time ago that she had stolen the scrub-cap that still resided in her locker. Now, she found to her own dismay, she was developing her own OR superstitions, involving the directions in which she cut and how she put on her gloves. It was contagious. Kind of like the smile he was giving her.

He came out into the hall and put an arm around her waist. "Shouldn't you be in the pit?"

She shrugged. "Not much happening. Of course, now that I've said that we'll have a three car pile-up come whirring in."

"Not that that would disappoint you any," he teased and she laughed.

"You're right. It wouldn't, normally." He looked at her, puzzled, and she took a breath. "Tonight, though, it would. You're off at seven, right?"

"Yes," he said. "Cristina, is something wrong?" His immediate leap to concern made her pull away a little, so that she stood in front of him instead of next to him.

"No," she said, forcing a smile. "Nothing's wrong. I just want us to go out tonight, okay?"

He nodded slowly. "Okay. What's the occasion?"

"There's no occasion!" she insisted, and became aware that she was being far too forceful. She willed herself to relax. "Nothing's wrong, I promise. I just want to talk, that's all. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed. "You're being strange today, Cristina."

"I know," she said, bluntly and he laughed. She bristled, but after a moment she started to laugh too. She was overdoing it, she knew, she just wasn't very good at this. He understood that though. They had been together for too long for him not to understand.

After a few more moments standing there her pager went off.

"Three car pile-up?" he teased and she shook her head.

"No. The guy I just did damage control on is bleeding out. Gotta go."

Before she could disappear into the elevator, he grabbed her arm and kissed her cheek. She smiled in spite of herself as she dove through the metal doors.

"Aunt Cristina!" Only one person called her that, Cristina whirled around to see Lydia, in Meredith's arms right behind her.

"Hey you guys," she said, leaning against the elevator wall. "What are you doing here?"

Lydia buried her face in Meredith's neck and muttered, "Had to go see Grace today."

Meredith shifted her weight and got a firmer grip on Lydia's crutches as Cristina watched and marveled at how natural they looked together.

"How did that go?" Cristina asked, as five people boarded on the third floor.

"Okay," Lydia murmured, and Meredith shrugged.

'She did well, we're getting there." She always tended to use that phrase, and Cristina was never sure where there was, exactly. Maybe walking without the crutches, she had heard that mentioned as a long-term goal.

"Good."

"So…. Have you told him yet?" Meredith asked, as they exited the elevator.

"Um…. No. We're going out to dinner tonight and talking."

Meredith raised an eyebrow. "You're talking?"

"I'm talking. What's up with you, are you and Shepard talking?"

"Child," Meredith said, warningly, placing Lydia on the ground. "Walking to daycare, hun," she said, as Lydia scowled. "And yes, we're talking. We're fine. Why wouldn't we be fine, have you--?" Cristina was almost certain that her next words would have been 'heard anything', but Lydia stumbled, and Meredith knelt quickly to right her and convince the child that tears were in no way necessary.

"No, nothing. Um, I've got a patient bleeding out. Got to go," Cristina said, running off towards the OR, but she wasn't convinced. Something was going on with the Shepard-Greys. That was funny to think. Usually she just thought Meredith, or Derek. Even now it was hard to think of them as a family unit. It would figure that she gained the ability to do that when things weren't right. Weird.

"Where have you been?' Bailey demanded and Cristina ignored her, going in to tend to her patient. His bleeding would require another operation, which she informed the family in a rush as she prepped him. She hated the times when she actually had to deal wit the family, because in her position the times she had to speak to the families were when she had already operated once and was having to do it again.

She quickly scrubbed in, next to Izzie who was removing a cyst on a young woman's ovary, and went in for damage control. She was good at damage control. She put things back together once they went wrong. In life and in surgery.

She made the first cut, instructing an intern who was hovering over her to watch. "Dr. Anders," she said icily, "If you don't want this scalpel to be slashed across your throat, you will get out of my space."

The intern jumped back at her tone of voice, and she smirked, as did several of the scrub-nurses. Those that had known her as an intern were not as afraid of her as the others. She would have to work on that.

The damage that she had missed the first time was not too easy to fix, but it was simple enough that she was kicking herself for having missed it in the first place. It was not like her. She was obviously preoccupied, and she hated that. Preoccupation did not work when you were a surgeon. As she sewed him up she glanced up at a clock on the wall, 4:30. She was off at six, and in that time she had to get home and change, because she had not made up her mind to do this today when she left the house and hadn't brought a dress.

Preoccupation at its finest.

She didn't have to scrub in again, so she spent the rest of the day checking on post-ops and forcing interns to discharge and suture. It was fun to watch them grovel. She really should work on this schdenfreude problem.

At six she was on her bike and on her way to the apartment. She stood in front of the mirror for fifteen minutes in blue dresses, red dresses and black dresses until she finally whipped out her cell phone to call Meredith.

"Red, blue or black?"

"Green," Meredith said, distractedly. "The one you wore to Lyddie's christening."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"What are you doing?" Cristina asked, Meredith sounded very preoccupied, and she wasn't on-call, Cristina had called the home number.

"I," Meredith said dryly, "am attempting to cook, because Derek is taking on extra shifts because of his… business trip next week."

"You're cooking?"

"Grilled cheese. I've done it before, I never killed anyone, but I hate cooking."

"Yeah, I know, let me talk to the kid." Cristina plopped on her bed, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear to put on her hose.

"Cristina!"

"Kid, phone, now."

Meredith sighed audibly, there was a shuffling noise and then Lydia was on the phone. "Hello?"

"Lydia, what's the number for the fireman, sweetie?"

"9-1-1."

"And poison control?"

"1-800-222-1222."

"And what are the only ingredients in grilled cheese?"

"Bread, and cheese, and butter."

"Good girl. Watch your mom carefully, 'kay?"

"Okay, Aunt Cristina. Um, I think Mommy wants to talk to you! Here you go, Mommy."

"What was that? At least let my child have faith in me."

"Uh-huh. Gotta go, talk to you later." Cristina closed her phone and sighed, as she finished putting on her hose. She put on the dress that Meredith had suggested and realized that her friend was right: the green did suit her and the occasion.

She then started the daily struggle with her hair. She really, for once, didn't want to leave it down, and so she managed to win a fight with a very willful barrette and gel to make it stay clasped behind her head and not look messy as it so often did at work. Once she was done with make-up and the barest amount of jewelry it was 7:05 and Burke would be home any minute.

She had decided to leave him a note with the name of the restaurant, rather than have him come home to find her dressed and leave together, but this meant that she had to take a cab. Riding a motorcycle in a dress did not work, she'd tried. So, she hailed a cab and was in it, just at the time that Burke would normally be pulling into his parking-spot in the apartment's garage.

Having decided to let him order the wine, and the meal, she sat at the small table for two sipping her water and waiting none-too-patiently for him to arrive. Her wedding band sparkled in the light from the candle at the end of the table and she smiled a little. When he had proposed she had surprised both of them by answering without thinking. After four years, it was just right.

"Cristina, you look gorgeous," he said, as he sat in the chair across from her, and she shrugged.

"Thanks. You look nice too."

The waiter was there quickly, and Burke was surprised to find that she had not ordered anything. He raised an eyebrow as he ordered white wine and fish, but she did not acknowledge this. Instead she asked him about a surgery he had preformed two days before, and he told her about it. It was their normal conversation.

It was not until their food had been served that Cristina put down her fork and looked seriously at her husband. "So, I guess you're wondering why we're eating here, and everything."

"It did cross my mind," he admitted with a smile, "But I figured you had a reason for being so secretive."

"You're right, I did I do," Cristina said instantly, and then told herself to pull back. She had to do this calmly. "I've been thinking a lot lately. Like, more than usual, because of what you said last week, about…. About the possibility of us having kids." That being out, she took a breath. "And, I think—I think that I'm ready."

For a minute it seemed as if he did not know how to react, like he was thinking 'no sudden movements', but then his face broke out in a grin, and the took her hand. "Seriously?" he said, and she sighed.

"No, not seriously; would I be wearing this dress if I weren't serious? Like I said, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think that I'm willing."

"You're willing? But do you want it? Do you want us to have kids?" his probing was gentle, and she nodded as the waiter came to take their dessert order.

"Yeah I do. I want kids."

"Okay. Let's get dessert then, to celebrate."

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"So I was thinking…. We should visit my mother before you leave. Because I'll be really busy this week and I won't be able to take Lyddie and—."

"And you prefer to have me there when you go, Mer, it's okay, I know." Derek smiled over at her from the bed where he was sitting cross-legged, his checkbook on a lap-desk in his lap.

Meredith sighed and sat back on her heels by the dresser where she was putting up laundry. "I know that you know. I don't know why it felt so awkward to ask, because you'll be back in a week, and that's all…. It just was."

Derek put the lap-desk to the side and slid off the bed. He went over to her and sat down. "Meredith, what's going on with us?"

"I don't know," Meredith said, miserably, tossing a shirt into the drawer. "I want it to be nothing. I want whatever it is to not matter to me, but it doesn't seem to be working that way."

Derek sighed, and reached out an arm, pulling Meredith to him. She relaxed and buried her face in his shirt. "I have an idea," he said, running his fingers through her hair.

"After all of this is over, we'll go somewhere, just the two of us. No work, no Lydia, no worries."

Meredith smiled. They hadn't had a real honeymoon, because when they got married Lydia had been so young and so delicate. Now she was more willing to trust people with her, and it was a possibility.

"Okay," she murmured, "I think we do need some time alone. I mean now there's always something." She sat up. "Like now. Now I have to go and pick Lydia up from Dad's."

"Do you want me to go with you and then we can go to see your mom, and maybe get dinner somewhere?"

"That sounds great," Meredith said, smiling and pulling him up. Maybe things weren't so different.

They pulled up to her father's house and Derek waited in the car while Meredith went to ring the doorbell. Her father's house seemed more familiar now, and their conversations weren't as awkward, but there was still something lingering under the surface that couldn't allow her to have a normal relationship with her father. She and Derek rarely spent time there, which admittedly could have had a hand in it, but there was never a good time.

There had been one Thanksgiving when Lydia was two when they had accepted the invitation to dine with her father, but it had been the most uncomfortable Thanksgiving Meredith had ever spent, including the one in which she dined with only the housekeeper for company. There had been too much sharing of family memories which stopped with one glance at Meredith, and too many times when she had thought longingly of the Thanksgiving gathering at the townhouse.

Now, Lydia went to her grandfather's every Sunday and Meredith and Derek joined them for Easter and the occasional meal. It was simpler. She and her father had never had the talk, the one that brought up half-healed wounds and caused scars to bleed. They had started it the day he had come to the townhouse while she was pregnant but they never finished it. She wasn't sure that they ever would.

Lydia was waiting by the door, knowing just enough about clocks to be able to read four o'clock, the time at which her parents always came to get her. Or one of her many adopted aunts and uncles, if her parents were working.

"Mommy!" she cried, throwing herself at Meredith.

"Omph, hey there!" Meredith said, gathering the girl in her arms. "Where are your accessories?"

"In the living room. I took 'em off after church," Lydia said, waving a hand at her crutches, sneakers and braces which lay in a heap by the television. Meredith's father came down the hall and smiled.

"She was a very good girl today, weren't you Lydia?"

"Yes I was!" Lydia said proudly, as Meredith sat her down to put on her leg braces. "I was quiet in church, and I went to Sunday school, and I didn't hit Bobby Wilder or nothing!"

"Anything," Meredith corrected with a smirk. "And I'm very glad that you didn't hit Bobby Wilder. Go say goodbye to Grandma Susan, Daddy's waiting in the car."

"Okay!" Lydia said, heading off towards the kitchen.

Meredith stood, gathering Lydia's sweater and backpack up. She faced her father and smiled slightly. "Thank you for watching her."

"Not a problem at all. We love having her. Listen, Meredith, we're having a little get-together next Sunday, Molly's going to be in town, and the rest of Lydia's cousins will be here. We'd like you and Derek to come along with her."

"Oh. Um. Derek's going to be out of town, and I don't know if I'm off. I'll let you know," Meredith said, as Lydia came back into the room.

"Okay, Mommy, I'm ready. What are we doing tonight?"

"We're going to go see Grandma Ellis," Meredith said quietly, "And then we're going to get some dinner, okay? Go outside and Daddy will get you in the car."

Lydia gave her grandfather one more hug and then went outside, taking the steps carefully and then moving as fast as she could to Derek's car.

"How is she?" Meredith's father asked quietly.

Meredith shook her head. "Not well. Not anymore. She's never lucid, and they're always worried about infection, pneumonia. Still, she's strong. She hasn't even caught anything yet. Not in a long time, anyway."

"I'm sure it's not easy on you, Meredith."

"No. It's not. Um…. I have to go. I'll let you know about next weekend." Meredith made her way to the door, but her father caught her arm and kissed her cheek.

"I'll see you soon, Meri."

Somehow, in spite of everything, this made Meredith smile.

"Bye, Dad."

Back in the car she was silent, but Derek sensed her feelings and put his hand in hers, squeezing it gently. She turned to him and he gave her a reassuring smile. In the back Lydia began to tell them about the game of Uno she had played with Susan, one that kept going on "forever 'n' ever".

"Grandma Susan is reading me The Little House on the Prairie. I like it lots, and Laura's a lot like Lizzy. I mean they both don't like to just sit still. I don't like to just sit still neither."

"Either," Meredith corrected. "I don't like to sit still either, Lyddie. I don't know anyone that does, really."

"What about Nurse Debby?" Lydia asked. "She just sits at the nurses' station while everyone else works!"

Derek covered a laugh with a cough and Meredith smiled. "That's not really true, sweetheart. She checks on patients, and changes bandages, and lots of other things. She helps the doctors a lot."

Lydia seemed to think about this for a minute, and then nodded. "Okay." She sat back in her carseat and stared out the window. Meredith turned back to the windshield and smiled.

The drive to Roseridge seemed to take no time at all, even though it was a good ten minute drive. Meredith got out of the car and opened the side door to help Lydia out. She had already unbuckled, a trick she had acquired just after her fifth birthday, and she scrambled out. Derek took Meredith's hand and they went in. The sky was a bright blue, and Meredith wished that her mother was just a little bit better, so that she could walk outside with her. She always seemed to brighten when they did that.

They signed in with the nurse at the desk and went back, past the residents who were sipping tea in the common room and those playing chess and checkers, to the rooms. Most of the doors were shut, but some were open. Many of the elderly there were talking animatedly with visitors or other residents, but some simply lay in their beds, looking at nothing. Meredith noticed Derek staring pointedly ahead as they passed one open door, and she couldn't bring herself to look either.

Her mother's door was closed, and out of habit Meredith knocked gently before opening it. Her mother didn't turn towards the noise of them entering, nor did she seem to notice as Lydia noisily bounded into the room.

"Hi Grandma Ellis! It's Lydia and Mommy and Daddy! We came to visit you, 'cause it's Sunday and that's Grandparents' day, I guess!"

Meredith smiled sadly at Lydia's jubilance. Derek went to a chair on the opposite side of the room, near where Lydia had positioned herself, but Meredith went up to her mother's bed, smoothing her hair back. Her mother's hair had lost some of the reddish-blonde hue, and was now a flat color, not white, but without any real color. Ancolorful. That wasn't a word, but it fit.

"Hi Mom," she said, quietly. "The nurse says you've had a good week. I'm glad. I guess Richard came to see you yesterday, since he was off. I have my fellowship observation this week, for Sacramento. I don't think I'm really a California girl, though. Still, if New York accepted me, Sacramento better, huh?"

She sighed, wondering if there was any point to talking to her mother, but she always hoped that there was a part of her that heard, even if it wasn't the part that they could see.

"Boston did too, but I told you that. Oh! Speaking of Boston; guess who called me last week, out of the blue? William Dawson! He's got his own law firm in Pittsburgh, and he and his partner are adopting their second child. You were always right about his…er…." She glanced at Lydia and decided not to say 'sexual orientation'. "Preferences."

Derek laughed, a strange sound in the quiet room, and Meredith smiled over at him. Lydia crawled up on the foot of the bed. "Grandma Ellis, guess what? Mommy's teaching me how to swim. She said that she used to swim when you lived in Boston, and sometimes you would go too. Grandpa said he'd take me too, and I wish you could take me. It would be fun."

Suddenly Meredith needed something to do with her hands. She glanced around the room and saw the nearly-wilted flowers she had brought the week before in a vase on the dresser. She went over to them and took them into the small bathroom to put new water in the vase. They perked up almost immediately.

She stayed rooted to the linoleum for a moment, unable to go back into the room where her mother lay so lost, and her daughter talked so naturally to the grandmother that she would never really know. After a few minutes, though, Meredith collected herself and brought the bright purple flowers back into the room.

Derek held an arm out to her, and she went over to perch on his knee, feeling his strong arms around her as they kept her mother company.

A little while later, a nurse poked her head into the room. "Dr. Grey, Dr. Shepard? I'm sorry, but visiting hours are nearly over."

"Okay," Meredith said softly, standing up. The nurse left. "Time to go Lyddie," Meredith said. Lydia nodded and crawled up on the bed to kiss Meredith's mother's pale cheek. Derek lifted her off the bed, and they turned to go. "I'll be back as soon as I can, Mom," Meredith said, and then went to follow her husband and daughter.

As she reached the door, there was a small noise from the bed. Meredith turned and stared as her mother's lips obviously formed her name. '_Meredith'_. She had not really spoken in months, her voice unable to make intelligible sounds, but this time it was obvious what she meant.

Meredith hurried over to her, and took her mother's outstretched hand. "I'm here, Mom. It's okay." She stroked her mother's hand with a finger. "You're all right, Mom. I have to go now, okay? But I'll come back to see you. I promise."

Gently she leaned over and kissed her mother's forehead. As she drew back something stuck between the bedside table and the bed caught her eye. Meredith knelt down to fish out the small photo album that had gotten wedged in there. She took it with her to the door and called good-bye to her mother once more.

She expected Derek to be waiting just outside the door, but he was not. She walked slowly down the hall, and saw the hem of Lydia's Sunday dress just inside a door. She slowly went to lean on the doorjamb, watching Derek speak to the nearly-lifeless man in the bed.

Mark's eyes were open, the mark of a sleep-wake cycle developed by PVS patients, but they did not focus.

"She's strong," Derek was saying, "But I know she'd want you here. I'll take care of her for you, man, but it's not me she wants." He sighed and put a hand on Mark's shoulder, and then drew it back quickly, turns and walked out the door. Meredith and Lydia followed.

They ate dinner at McDonald's, much to Lydia's delight, because neither of her parents really wanted to deal with all that goes with having a sit-down meal at a nicer restaurant. At home Lydia begged to watch The Little Mermaid, and Meredith obliged. They sit together on the couch, Meredith not really watching the dancing fish, and Lydia completely engrossed. Derek could be heard in his study, typing away at a paper he has been commissioned to write for a medical journal.

She bathed Lydia and put her to bed, the photo album and her mother forcibly pushed to the back of her mind. She kissed Lydia good-night and gently covered her with the blanket that she and Izzie had knitted when Lydia was a baby. Then she went downstairs and took the album from her purse, went into the room that served them as a library (filled with everything from medical texts to picture books, sat on the floor and opened it.

As she stared at the pictures of herself and her parents so long ago she began to cry. The tears that had welled up in her eyes when her mother tried to say her name fell, and she couldn't catch her breath.

"Meredith? Meredith, what's wrong?" Derek said, sinking to his knees beside her. She shook her head and fell against him, unable to explain, figuring that he knew. He murmured softly, rocking her back and forth as he did Lydia. "It's okay, Mer, you're okay."

She didn't believe him, because she was so, so grateful that this had happened while he was still home, and not the next week. Any later and she would be curled up here, crying alone. The thought made her sob more, and Derek did not know why.

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"So then, he goes bug-eyed and asks me how often the one who catches the bouquet is really the next one to get married," Izzie crows, telling Meredith about the wedding of one of Alex's cousins that they attended that weekend.

"What'd you tell him?" Meredith asked slyly, taking a sip of her coffee and walking back through the doors of Seattle Grace. They had been eating their lunch outside in the courtyard.

Izzie shrugged and chucked her empty salad plate in a trashcan. "Nothing, really. I mean, I didn't want to give him false ideas or whatever."

"Do you want to marry him?" Meredith asked. "I mean, you've been dating for a while and it seems to be going well. It is, isn't it?"

Izzie nodded slowly. "Yeah, lately it has been. I just…. I don't know. I always thought that I would be married by now, and I almost was…." She trailed off, still unwilling to mention Denny. His name had become almost taboo among them. "But now I'm just not sure. Things can go wrong."

"Yeah," Meredith said quietly. "But things can go right too."

Izzie smiled at her. "Yeah. But we can't all find our McDreamy and ride off into the sunset with Lydia driving the horse."

Meredith laughed. "Don't mention that to her, or she'll start asking me for horseback riding lessons. And yes, I know, it's supposed to be good for gross motor, but I think the swimming will help just as much. You can't fall off and break you're neck when you're swimming. I mean, she's not diving. Okay, back to you."

"Well anyway. I just don't know, you know?"

"I don't suppose you have to worry about it yet," Meredith agreed. "Just worry about it when he proposes."

Izzie stopped in her tracks, and Meredith turned.

"Do you think he will?" Izzie asked, her eyes widening in shock.

To Izzie's surprise, Meredith burst out laughing and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the elevator. "Iz, whatever happens will happen and that's that. Now don't you have a kid to birth or something?"

Izzie sighed. "So speaking of whatever happens, where's the knight-in-shining armor?"

Meredith pushed the elevator button. "Business trip in New York, remember? He arranged the Lydia sitting schedule with you, didn't he?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that he was leaving today, I guess." Izzie shrugged. "You and Lydia partying?"

"Sure, on the one night I have off this week," Meredith grumbled. "The guy from Sacramento comes in tomorrow, and my observer from here is none other than Bailey."

"That's weird, since she was your resident."

"The chief has a strange sense of humor, we know this."

"Yeah, you're right."

Meredith leaned against the wall of the elevator and sighed. "Bur really? If there has to be a week when I have no time off, I'm glad it's when Derek isn't here. That house is just so damn quiet."

Izzie nodded, and was about to ask if they'd thought of adding other, smaller, occupants when the doors opened.

They parted and Izzie smiled to herself as she headed to the OR. Whatever happened would happen. Still, she wasn't sure if she was ready for a proposal. They had broken up so many times, it just felt unstable.

She hadn't had a chance to check on Addison as she had meant to, with going with Alex to the wedding and everything, so when she got off at three that day she went straight to Addison's townhouse.

There were two cars parked in the driveway, and one of them was strangely familiar. Izzie paused, two houses away to watch Addison coming out of the front door, dragging a suitcase her red hair glinting in the sun. Derek Shepard following behind her, closing the door and locking it.

"Oh my God," Izzie breathed, and quickly backed out to drive away.

A/N So, I'm not a fan of the "GAGAGA" thing, but the stupid line break button isn't working!

Review!


	5. We're All in This Together

**Chapter Four**

"You don't know that anything is going on, Izzie!" George insisted, falling back against the couch, Meredith's couch, because this was still Meredith's house, and they were talking about Meredith because Izzie saw what might have been Meredith's husband having an affair. With his ex-wife. But George wasn't sure. "They could just be going to the same conference," he continued, watching Izzie pace back and forth in front of him. She had apparently sped away from Addison's and come straight home to inform him of what she had seen.

"When she's taken a six month leave of absence?"

"Maybe she's going back to New York and they're just flying together?" George suggested, taking a sip of the beer he had been getting out of the refrigerator when Izzie arrived home. "Come on, Izzie, think about this. It's Meredith, and usually the second anything goes wrong in the life of Meredith Grey we're the first ones to know."

Izzie flopped back onto the couch next to him, leaning her head on her hand. "Yeah. Okay. Except that we're not her roommates any more, so we might not. I mean, we were living together when we got pregnant so we had to know, and we were there when Lydia was diagnosed, and…" She trailed off, but George knew what she was really thinking.

"And we still see her every day, Izzie. We eat lunch together, and have dinners at her house. It's not the same, but we can't be roommates forever, it just doesn't work like that."

"That's not the point here, George!" Izzie said angrily, "This could be a serious issue."

"Could be," George repeated in agreement. "But isn't yet. We don't know anything, and I don't know about you but I really don't want to go up to Meredith and say: 'Hey, is Derek having an affair?' because, aside from being kind of rude, it could also make her worry when there is probably nothing going on!"

"You're the one who never trusted Shepard!" Izzie exclaimed standing up again.

"I trust him enough to know that he wouldn't hurt Meredith and Lydia like that. Remember Lydia? Little girl, has Shepard's heart on a string and calls you Aunt Tizzie?"

"What do you think he originally did to Addison, George? He hurt her!"

"Yes, after she cheated on him. He and Meredith have had a great relationship for five years, I really don't think he'd sabotage that," George said, realizing how emphatically he was defending a man who he could never get used to. He supposed it came from Meredith-loyalty. "He loves her."

Izzie seemed to shake his words off. "Think what this would do to her, George," she said, sinking onto the couch.

"Izzie!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "You don't know anything. You have no proof! You cannot go making accusations like that just because you saw Shepard coming our of Addison's house!" Izzie looked at him, evidently shocked by his outrage. He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I understand why you would be suspicious, but I really don't think we have anything to worry about and we definitely should not worry Meredith, okay?"

"Okay," Izzie agreed, gently resting her head on George's shoulder. George breathed in grateful for the ceasing of the drama. He had just managed to relax slightly when the front door banged open.

"Damn it!" he heard Callie exclaim from the hall. Izzie jumped, but her head remained on his shoulder as Callie stormed into the room.

"What's wrong?" George asked her, taking in the red in her cheeks and the fury in her eyes.

"I hate those fucking ortho bastards!" she cried, seizing the stem of the lamp on the end table.

"I think Meredith likes that lamp," Izzie commented, and Callie's fist relaxed around it.

"What'd they do?" George asked. "The ortho bastards, I mean."

Callie turned to him, apparently fully seeing the scene in the living room for the first time. Her face change, it was an expression he couldn't read. "Never mind," she said icily, "Looks as if you guys were having a pretty cozy conversation. I'll just be upstairs." She stormed up the stairs and George's eyes widened in shock.

Izzie sat up and looked at him. "What was that?" she said.

He shook his head and answered her as he stood up from the couch, "I don't know but I'm going to go found out."

George bounded for the stairs and when to the door of the room he shared with Callie. It was unlocked and the door was ajar, so he pushed it lightly to open it. Callie sat on the bed, staring murderously out the window. Quietly he went up and sat on the bed next to her.

When she did not say anything for a minute he gently prodded. "Callie? What's really wrong? Izzie's my best friend and you know that. She's with Alex, remember? The walking sex machine?"

This did not get a snigger out of Callie like it usually did, but her shoulders did relax a little. "It's just those assholes," she murmured after a while. "They hate me, because I'm female and because I'm good at what I do. The residents won't even take orders from me. It's fricking annoying, but it's more than that. They make me feel wrong, like I shouldn't be there. I thought that I was done with that, George," she said, tears in her voice. "I thought that because I had found something that I was good at, and that I liked, I wouldn't be made to feel as if I was wrong just because I was a girl."

George lightly put an arm around her, remembering the stories she had told him about being a tomboyish child and always feeling left out. He remembered how awkward it had been when she had first encountered the bonds within the group of interns he was a part of, but eventually she had found her place.

"They are assholes," he said quietly, confiding in her ear. "And you don't need to listen to them. They will come around eventually, and all that you can do until then is be your amazing self and prove to them that you are a million times better than most people with Y chromosomes in your specialty. And if that doesn't work: hand me a bone saw and I'll go after them."

This time Callie giggled and he relaxed. "Okay," she said. "Just me over reacting again?" He didn't answer and she continued, once again bubbly and Callie. "What was Izzie upset over?"

"Oh, she's just freaking out over something that probably doesn't even exist. Izzie's a gossip whore."

"What was it?" Callie asked.

He thought about not telling her, but he knew that he had to, to show that he trusted her and that she was a part of everything his only fear was that she too would over-react and would say something to Meredith.

"If it's about Meredith," she said, barging into his thoughts, "You should know that I'm perfectly capable of keeping her secrets."

He looked over at her, curiously, but didn't ask. "Okay, yeah it is. Izzie, mistakenly I'm sure, got it into her head that Shepard's cheating on Mer with Addison because he saw her leaving Addison's house."

Callie shook his head. "I don't think he's capable of that," she said firmly.

"Why's that? I mean, I don't think so either, but--."

"Because Shepard hates betraying people, he hated betraying Addison with Meredith, but betraying Meredith would also be betraying Lydia and Sloan."

George nodded. "That's pretty much what I thought," he agreed. "Although you worded it about twenty times better."

Callie laughed and nuzzled against him.

"Hey guys!" Izzie called from the hallway. "Want me to order pizza?"

"Sure!" George called.

"If you get anchovies again I'll hurt you!" Callie added and he heard Izzie laugh in the hall.

"You okay now?" he asked Callie. She nodded and he kissed her gently on the lips. A part of him, however, was worried about her.

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

_It's probably not a good thing_ _when you're first words upon waking up are "Oh shit.", _Meredith decided. Unfortunately, that was what she found herself saying when she drug herself out of bed on the morning of her first fellowship observation. She said it, because she realized when she woke up that she definitely felt as horrible as she had the night before (or morning, since she had stopped looking at the clock when she kept freaking waking up), and perhaps worse.

When she went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror she knew that if Derek saw her like this he would be on the phone with the chief and pulling every string he could to get the observer to stay an extra day. The chief, who adored Derek even if he had said he would never take the position, would do whatever he could and quite possibly succeed. Meredith, however, was in no way willing to attempt the same acrobatics herself, and so she reached for the Tylenol and hoped that the sore throat would not render her unable to speak.

She dressed slowly, telling herself that she was saving energy, but really just not being able to move very quickly. Wonderfully, Lydia began to stir right when she needed her to, at five-fifteen. She tip-toed into the girl's room and gently put a hand on her back.

"Lyddie, it's time to get up and go to day-care," she whispered as the child's eyes began to open.

"'Kay," Lydia murmured, pulling up on Meredith's arm. "You're hot, Mommy."

Meredith swallowed, painfully, and sighed. "I've been under my covers, baby, just like you. But it's time to get up now." She stood and went over to Lydia's dresser, pulling out a small pair of jeans and a t-shirt. When she turned back around the girl had put her curly-haired head back on the pillow. "Lydia," Meredith said warningly, but quietly went over and began jiggling the bed. "It's waking up time."

Lydia giggled and opened her eyes again, this time looking around when she sat up. "It's early morning," she commented, as Meredith slipped her nightgown over her head.

"Yes it is. Here, put your shirt on and go to the potty," Meredith ordered. Lydia went off, walking down the hall holding onto the handrails. Meredith sat down on her daughter's bed and sighed putting her head into her hands.

"Damn," she whispered, and then attempted shake off her feelings of despair. She could get through this. She'd worked sick before, not often because Derek had caught her, but several times during her internship and residency even he'd agreed that she had had no choice.

"Ow! Mommy!" Meredith jumped up, and went into the hall, her vision blurring. Lydia was sitting on the floor, one leg sticking out about as far as her lower lip. "I felled," she explained, holding her arms up.

Meredith picked her up, not feeling up to having the 'well get back up' argument. "You fell. A lumberjack can fall a tree and then it has been felled. You, my sweet, fell. But you're not hurt, so let's get your pants on and go fix some quick breakfast, okay?"

"Okay," Lydia agreed, plucking at her pink t-shirt. Meredith quickly got her into the rest of her clothes and they walked slowly downstairs, Lydia holding onto both Meredith's hand and the railing. Meredith's head was steadily pounding as she waited dutifully for the pills to kick in.

She poured Lydia cereal and stuck a bagel in the toaster for herself. She didn't really want it, but she could hear people like Derek and Cristina in her head telling her that she needed to eat.

"Am I going to see Grace today?" Lydia asked, as Meredith poured Spock's dog food.

"No, sorry sweetie," Meredith said. "I have lots to do today, remember George's taking you home, so you don't see Grace 'til Friday."

"But I _want_ to," Lydia insisted. "She said we'd use the swing the next time I came! I always hafta go when I don't wanna, and when I wanna I can't! It's not fair!" in protest she threw her spoon onto the floor and crossed her arms.

Meredith sighed, biting into her bagel. "Pick it up, please Lyds? I'm sorry that you want to go see Grace, but now you have the swing to look forward to all week."

Lydia scowled, as Spock came over to investigate the dropped spoon.

"Lydia!" Meredith exclaimed as Spock licked the spoon. Slowly Lydia bent over to pick up the spoon and was about to stick it back into her cereal when Meredith reached over to grab it. "Okay, breakfast done," she said quickly, grabbing the cereal bowl.

"I'm still eating!" Lydia cried.

"You'll be just fine until snack time," Meredith countered pouring out the uneaten cereal and putting the bowl and spoon into the dishwasher. "Go into the foyer and get started with your accessories."

Lydia obeyed silently, and Spock followed, his toenails clacking on the tile. Meredith glanced out the kitchen window at the blue-ish light and momentarily braced her head between her index finger and pinkie.

"Mommy! I need help!"

Back into action she went, hurrying into the foyer to help Lydia into her braces and shoes. Once all Velcro was velcroed and all laces were tied she loaded Lydia into the car and set off for the hospital.

"Hey Mommy?" Lydia said, staring out the window.

"Yes sweetie?"

"I'm sorry I was bad this morning."

"Thank you sweetie," Meredith murmured.

"You're not mad, right?"

"Nope, not mad."

"'Kay good."

Just then Meredith's phone rang, and she held it between her ear and shoulder as she pulled up to a traffic light. "Hello?"

"Hey baby, doing all right so far?"

At the sound of Derek's voice Meredith felt her throat catch and she wanted to break down and tell him all of the horrible thoughts and fears that had been running through her head, to whine that she felt bad and just wanted to go home and curl up into a ball in their bed, but she didn't. She couldn't.

"Yeah, everything's going great so far," she said, forcing a smile into her voice. "How's Addison?"

"Okay. They just took her into to pre-op, so it'll be a little while. I'll get to spend time in the waiting room and pretend like I'm not used to being every where in a hospital except there."

Meredith laughed. "At the same time I'll be wishing that I was any where in the hospital but doing surgery, I'm pretty sure."

"Mer, you'll be amazing. Don't worry. Tell him your attending gives a glowing review."

"Yes, and just also happens to be my husband. Dr. Weir's giving the rec, remember?"

"Well, I tried."

She laughed again and felt just a little bit better. "I'm about to pull into the parking garage, Derek, so I'll lose you. Thanks for calling, though. I love you."

"I love you too, Meredith. Call me and let me know how it goes, okay?"

"Yeah. I will, definitely. Talk to you later."

"Bye."

She hung up and took the first curve in the garage.

"Was that Daddy? Didn't he want to talk to me?"

"He did, sweetheart, but he had to go. He'll talk to you as ssoon as he can, okay?"

Lydia nodded, and Meredith breathed a sigh of relief that that, at least, hadn't sparked a tantrum.

She parked the car and unloaded Lydia, hurrying her to the walkthrough to the hospital and then the elevator. They rarely used the garage, since it was mostly for patients, but since she was on-call for twenty-four hours and not taking Lydia home she preferred to leave the car under cover.

She went down to the basement where the day-care was housed and shooed her daughter in, kissing her good-bye and taking just a moment to wave at the teacher before dashing to the stairs and pushing herself to get to the fourth floor and the locker room. She changed in record time and beads of sweat began trailing down the back of her neck. She smiled wryly; at least the fever was finally breaking.

Hanging her stethoscope around her neck, she made her way to the chief's office, where she had been told to meet her observer. Patricia waved her in and she stepped into the office to see the chief speaking with an older man. He was bald with a little bit of white hair around the edges, and he had on a stern expression as he spoke to the chief. He did not scream California to Meredith.

"Ah, Meredith," The chief said, standing up and gesturing to the unoccupied chair across from his desk. She took it. "Dr. Grey, this is Dr. Ronald Niemeyer who comes from Sacramento General Hospital, he will be observing you today."

Meredith turned to the man and flashed him a smile, "Nice to meet you, sir," she said, offering her hand to shake. He shook it once, but did not smile back.

"You were five minutes late, Dr. Grey," he accused. "We don't accept tardiness readily."

Meredith's heart sank. This was not starting off well. "I'm sorry sir, I'm usually not late. I had…. Things to attend to."

The man cleared his throat gruffly and the chief cut in. "Dr. Grey is generally perfectly on time, I assure you."

"Yes, well, I believe you have patients to attend to now, Dr. Grey?" Dr. Niemeyer stood and went to the door, clearly expecting Meredith to follow. She looked at the chief who nodded. "You must behave as you would if I were not here," he said, as Meredith led him to the surgical floor. "You'll find I blend into the shadows quite readily." Meredith looked at him, pale in his white labcoat and didn't doubt why.

She made a beeline for the nurses' station to pick up a pile of charts and noticed that he lurked just out of earshot. "Why," she mused under her breath, "do you always feel weaker as the fever breaks?"

"What fever?" Cristina asked conversationally, coming up next to Meredith with two cardboard cups of coffee.

"No fever, um… patient" Meredith said hurriedly, taking the second cup of coffee. "Gotta go." She quickly made her way to the locker room where her interns would be congregating. "Morning kids," she said, opening the door. "This is Dr. Niemeyer," she added, as they passed the man lurking just outside of the door. "He's observing today." She didn't bother going into details, because she had given them the "make a good impression or else" talk the day before.

"Who's presenting?" she said, as they entered the first patient's room.

From there, her day did not stop. She had one scheduled shunt replacement at nine, followed by several emergency surgeries. When she finally had a break from those she leaned against the nurses' desk to read a chart and she thought the eyes of her observer, who had not spoken since early morning, were going to bore through her if she did not start moving again.

She checked on her post-ops, twice, double checked the detailed notes that her interns had wrote and researched the medical history of a possibly PVS patient transferred from Mercy West all in an attempt to look busy.

"Have you eaten lunch yet?" Alex murmured, near three, leaning over the computer next to her.

"Um…. No," she said, guiltily, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

Alex put a hand on her arm. "Go. I'll distract him. Damn, Meredith, are you okay?" he added, his grip on her arm tightening. "You're hot."

"I know, or at least that's what most men tell me," she teased, closing out the computer screen. "I'm fine Alex, don't worry."

He shrugged. "Whatever you say." Then he walked pointedly across the hall to where the observer was making notes and scowling pointedly, possibly at this socialization. No doubt they didn't do that in California either.

"Excuse me," Alex said, in that patented suck-up way he had. "Are you Dr. Ronald Niemeyer, the acclaimed plastic surgeon from Sacremento? Because, if so sir, let me just say that I am a huge fan of your work. I devoured your most recent article--."

Meredith did not linger to listen to the rest of Alex's well laid-on flattery. Instead she quickly dodged behind a nurse and into the descending elevator. Grateful for the moment's rest, she leaned against the back wall and crossed her arms. Fatigue was threatening her, but she was determined not to let it win over.

She went through and bought a salad, and then collapsed into a chair in the back of the cafeteria, not visible at first glance. She dug a fork into her salad and took a bite, then wearily rested her head on one hand. She had, she thought, at least not made any crucial mistakes in any of her surgeries. In fact, the aneurism removal had been fairly complicated and had gone off without a hitch.

She smiled a little, and rubbed her temples. There were still fifteen hours to go.

"Meredith?" a voice said, and she blinked.

"Huh?"

Cristina was leaning on her table, peering at her. "You are so not okay," Cristina commented, taking a seat.

"I'm _fine_," Meredith insisted.

"You've been staring at nothing for five minutes and not eating."

Meredith stabbed at her salad again and put a bite of lettuce into her mouth. "Happy?" she muttered.

"Swallow."

Meredith glared at Cristina and swallowed, wincing.

"Yeah, definitely not okay."

"Well, whatever. I don't have many choices today. I have Scary California Man breathing down my neck. At the moment he's being distracted by Alex, which is how I got the fifteen minutes to actually eat."

Cristina sighed. "Okay, so admittedly, you have few choices here. Just, no collapsing, okay?"

Meredith smirked. "Well, I can't make any promises. You know how much I love that kind of attention." Cristina raised an eyebrow. "Kidding. No collapsing, promise. Now I have to go and pretend to have a patient to--." At that moment her pager went off. Glancing at it, she grimaced. "Screw the pretending part," she yelled, running out of the cafeteria towards the stairs.

The patient was one that she had been monitoring for several days, and the pressure in his brain had suddenly built up to a breaking point and he was seizing. She dove into the room, nearly knocking down a nurse, and not oblivious of the fact that Dr. Niemeyer was lurking in the shadows.

"Pheno in?" she demanded, checking the monitor.

"Yes. No change."

"Okay. I'm going to need a cranial access kit. The hydrocephalus is too severe. Move people!" she demanded, moving to the head of the bed. One intern lowered it, and she climbed onto the top. It unusual, for a surgeon to do this, but she found it allowed her more control. Crouched just inches away from the patient she began to drill. "Come on," she muttered, moving as fast as was allowable.

After what seemed like forever there was a small spray of blood and she could tell that the pressure had been relieved.

"He's responding," an intern informed, her, shining a pin light into the man's eyes.

"Good," Meredith breathed, beginning to sew the wound up. "Mr. Reinhart, can you hear me?"

"What's going on?" the patient asked, fear evident in his voice.

"We nearly lost you for a second there. You're pressure got too high, like I said it might. You're all right now," she finished, sliding off the bed and smiling at the patient. "We'll continue to watch you pretty closely for a day or more, okay?"

The patient was very pale, but he nodded.

"Okay."

Meredith smiled, and then turned to the intern. It was Dawson, who was generally nothing more than an ass, and he was staring at her, wide-eyed.

"Dawson, when you've put your eyes back in, I want you to watch Mr. Reinhart here, okay?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, whatever you say Dr. Grey."

Meredith smirked to herself as she walked out of the room, the silent observer behind her.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful, and about five-thirty she went looking for George. She found him by the nurses' station and pulled him aside.

"George…. I need you for an, um, patient consult," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the observer.

She pulled George out of earshot. "Okay, Lydia should be easy tonight," she said rapidly. "Just make sure she gets her stuffed dog from day-care because she left it last weekend and--."

George put a hand up. "Mer, I'm sorry. I can't get Lydia tonight, I just had an emergency surgery come in and I need to scrub in now."

Meredith's jaw dropped. She knew, of course, that things happened, but not today. Not when so much else had gone wrong.

"Okay…" she said slowly. "Is anyone else not on-call?"

George thought for a minute then shook his head. "No. I'm pretty sure that I was the only one."

"Shit," Meredith swore. "Okay… I'll just have to put her to bed in an on-call room. Maybe I can get Olivia or Debby to check on her… " she trailed off. "I'll handle it George, don't worry."

"I'm really sorry," George said. "If there's anything else that I can do--."

"No," Meredith said distractedly. "That was pretty much it. Oh sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm going to go before I say anything else." She pushed past him, saying loudly. "Okay, Dr. O'Malley, I'll go to billing and check that out for you."

_The easy thing to do,_ she thought, _would be to explain this to Scary California Man._ She was too afraid, however, that he wouldn't want to have to deal with a fellow who had to wind her schedule around a daughter. If he had been anyone but Scary California Man….

She got into the elevator and thanked God that he didn't follow. Mentally she thought about what she would tell Lydia, and hoped that whatever tantrum triggers may have been present the morning before were gone. She ran flat out to the daycare and flung the door open a little bit harder than she meant to, already three steps ahead and in the cafeteria in her mind.

"Mommy!" Lydia burst out, throwing her arms around Meredith's legs. Before Meredith could open her mouth, the little girl continued, "Can I sleep over at William's tonight? His mommy says it's okay!"

Meredith glanced up at Miranda Bailey who was holding her son's hand. Bailey nodded, once, and smiled. Meredith knelt to be on eye level with Lydia. "Okay, sweetie, you'll be a good girl?"

"Yes, Mommy!" Lydia exclaimed, grinning.

"Okay," Meredith said. "There's a change of clothes and PJs in her backpack." She always had them there, just in case Lydia had to sleep at the hospital unexpectedly. "I'm off tomorrow after six, so I can come get her, or you can bring her here, or whatever's easiest."

"Grey?" Bailey said.

"Yes?"

"Breathe. I got your back. For today at least. Now later this week, I'll be watching you, but for today I got you're back. Partially because you're still my piranha and partially because that California guy is a--." She looked down at the two children who were hanging onto her every word. "Well, not a very nice man." She smiled.

Meredith nodded gratefully and kissed Lydia good-bye before dashing off to continue working under the eyes of the not very nice man.

For the rest of the night she busied herself, checking on patients, roaming the halls in search of work, and generally exhausting herself. She caught Cristina eyeing her several times, but felt the observer watching her far more. She did catch two hours or so of sleep when the chief came by and ordered her to, pulling California Man aside to speak to him about something that Meredith didn't quite catch.

When her shift was finally over she politely said good-bye to her observer who merely nodded. Meredith had started to wonder if he had some sort of problem speaking, except that she had heard him speak. She pulled her phone out in the locker room to call Bailey and saw that she had missed a call from her fifteen minutes earlier.

"Miranda?" she said, when the phone picked up. It still felt weird to call Dr. Bailey that.

"Meredith, hi. Are you still alive?"

"Barely," Meredith laughed. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, I just wanted to tell you that Lydia's running a low-grade fever, so it would probably be best if you came and picked her up."

Meredith's heart ached. "Of course, I'll be there in less than twenty minutes," she said, maneuvering out of her labcoat and hanging up the phone. Lydia probably had exactly what she'd had, poor thing. Her throat was still sore, and she knew she'd been feverish off and on all night.

She focused every ounce of concentration she possessed on the road as she drove to Bailey's, which wasn't that far from her own house. She rang the doorbell, and Tucker let her in.

"Hi there, Meredith," he said smiling. "I heard you had a tough day, yesterday."

"I'm all right now," she said. "Where's my girl?"

Tucker moved aside and pointed her into the living-room where William was perched on the floor watching Spongebob Squarepants (which she never let Lydia watch at home), and Lydia was curled up on the sofa under a blanket, her thumb in her mouth.

Meredith went to her immediately and scooped her up.

"Mommy," Lydia murmured into her shoulder.

"I got you, baby," she said. "Mommy's here, and we're gonna go home now, okay?"

"'Kay." Lydia agreed.

Bailey appeared, with Lydia's backpack and crutches. "Braces are in the bag," she explained. Meredith slung the bag over one shoulder and took the crutches.

"Thanks for keeping her," she said. "I'm sorry about all of this."

"Don't be," Bailey said, waving a hand. "You can't control it. Get some rest," she added, showing Meredith to the door. "I expect to see you bright and early tomorrow."

"You will," Meredith assured her. "Lyddie? What to you say to Dr. Bailey?"

"Thanks for habin' me," Lydia said, sleepily.

Bailey reached up and ran a hand through the girl's curls. "My pleasure, sweetheart. We'll do it again sometime when you're feeling better, okay?"

"'Kay."

"Bye Lydia!" William called from the living-room. "Get better!"

Meredith loaded Lydia and her things into the car and drove the five minutes home. She wasted no time in getting her daughter, who was still in her pajamas, upstairs. She settled her into the master bed and changed into her own nightgown, snuggling in next to her daughter.

"What do you say you and I get some rest, Lyddie?" she said.

"I say yes," Lydia said solemnly, twirling a lock of Meredith's hair around her finger.

"Okay," Meredith agreed, and in the pale morning light they both fell asleep.

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Derek shifted uncomfortably in the hospital chair for the millionth time that afternoon and glanced at the clock. Six o'clock, making it three o'clock in Seattle. Probably okay to call Meredith. He hadn't wanted to wake her, if she had had as rough of a day as he expected she had, but he was worried since she hadn't called.

He glanced at Addison, who was propped up on pillows reading a magazine and then took out his phone, pushing down the speed dial for home.

"Hello?" Meredith said, answering on the third ring.

"Hey there," he said. "How are you?"

"Fine," she said. "Better, anyway. Yesterday went okay, I think. I had to open a skull bedside and it went perfectly, so hopefully he appreciated that."

Derek laughed. That was Meredith's sense of humor all right. "How was your observer?" he asked.

"A jackass," she said bluntly. "Which I can say, because Lydia's upstairs coloring. We've had a quiet day. She slept at Bailey's last night and had a fever, but she's okay now."

"At Bailey's? What about the Lydia-sitting schedule?"

"Yeah, that was before George had an emergency surgery. But it's okay. I've already reconfirmed tomorrow with Izzie five times. We're good. No worries."

"Okay," he said, doubtfully. "Are you okay? You didn't catch whatever bug she had, did you?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I didn't catch it. Do you know where the pizza coupons are?"

"Top of the refrigerator."

"Got 'em. How's Addison?"

"She's okay. They worried about infection so they kept her last night and are keeping her tonight, but she'll be discharged tomorrow and we'll still be home Sunday."

"Okay, good." There was a pause and he could almost feel the drop in Meredith's tone. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too. I wish that I could have been there to help you yesterday." Derek said quietly. "I hate that I had to leave you like this."

"I know." Meredith said shortly. "But it's okay. The others have my back. Listen, I have to go order the pizza, Lyddie's starving. I'll call you later, okay? And you can talk to her then too."

"Okay. I love you, Meredith."

"I love you, too," she said and although they said it often there was a different meaning in it this time. He really hated that he was away from her right now. He hung up the phone, sitting back in the chair and sighing. He rubbed one hand across his face and stared at the blank screen.

Addison looked over at him, peering over her reading glasses. "Everything okay?"

"I guess," he said. "She survived the observation, and Lydia had a fever but she's doing better."

"And Meredith?" Addison asked, putting the magazine down.

"She says she's fine," he said, helplessly.

"But you don't believe her?"

He sighed. "I want to. But usually 'fine' is code for: 'I'm being Meredith and pretending I'm okay so I don't get the attention I probably deserve or cause any problems.'"

"Funny, for a woman who definitely knows how to cause problems," Addison said pensively. "Sorry, that sounded awful. Don't worry, Derek. You guys will all be fine."

"So will you," he assured her, lightly taking her hand and squeezing it. "We'll all be fine," he amended, hoping that he was right.

A/N Please review! I'm starting college this week, moving six hours away from my home. I've got this prewritten a few chapters, so I should be able to keep it on schedule, and reviews give me so much happiness. Love you guys!

And the line break thing still isn't working. Grr


	6. Can You Hear Me

**Chapter Five**

Cristina was used to doing things that she didn't really want to do. She hadn't really wanted to go through and get her Ph.D and her MD, but she always had to have a back-up, that was the way she did things. There had been a time when she really did not want to socialize, or make friends with anyone within her internship program. She had planned on just doing it and moving on with her life, but things hadn't happened that way. Similarly, she did not really want to be sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room of the adoption agency on her day off, but she was there, staring at a magazine, with Burke sitting next to her.

Not that she had changed her mind about wanting kids. She did want kids. She just hated waiting in offices in general as well as answering prying questions which she was pretty sure that they were about to do. She glanced over her magazine at the otherwise empty waiting room and then at Burke, who met her eyes. She turned away, but he smiled at her reassuringly and caught her hand in his.

"Dr. Burke and Dr. Yang?" A woman in a business suit approached them and they stood, or at least Burke stood, pulling Cristina with him. "I'm Mary Alice," she said with a smile that showed off her teeth which were, frankly, far too white. Her sleek black hair was in a bun and she screamed businesswoman. "If you'll follow me to my office we'll get started on your profile."

"Profile?" Cristina repeated, as they filed into the small office. It seemed that her fears of prying questions had been confirmed.

"Yes," Mary Alice said brightly. "We'll start with basic information about what you two want, and then depending on what types of adoption you want to pursue, domestic or international, we'll make a profile with your basic information. Then we'll discuss our fees, the home study process and what else you can expect from the adoption process. I must tell you now that it won't be easy, and that there will be a lot of waiting involved. The end result, however, should be well worth it."

Cristina nodded, somewhat uncertainly, and Burke squeezed her hand. She wanted this, she had done that soul searching, and she was determined to get it. Determined-Cristina usually got what she wanted. She was just a little bit worried that too much of this particular thing would be out of her reach.

"Okay then. The first question I have to ask is: domestic or international adoption? I can give you information if you need-."

Burke put up a hand, in that way of his, and the overly bright woman paused. "No, we've thought about that. We decided that we'd prefer an international adoption." He looked at Cristina, checking to make sure she agreed, which was stupid. It had been her idea, when they discussed it two nights before. It was just that he was better with the talking to other people thing than she was.

"Okay then. We do handle international adoptions. We need to discuss from where you want to adopt."

_From whence,_ Cristina thought, but didn't say, instead she said: "We talked about that too, we don't care what country our child is from. We want a child that's healthy, but we can care for one with special needs."

The woman nodded. "We'll you've done your homework. Have you put any thought into sibling groups?"

"We'd prefer to adopt just one, for now," Burke said. "Either gender."

The woman nodded, writing all of this down on a form. She went on to question them about age, to which they replied that they wanted a fairly young child. With both Bailey and Meredith having children five and under their child would have ready-made playmates. Along with, of course, whatever siblings Lydia would wind up with if Shepard and Meredith ever figured themselves out.

The questioning continued, going through their histories, their incomes (this seemed to please Mary Alice, although Cristina supposed she wasn't supposed to notice that) and explaining the process of the international adoptions. It was a lot of paperwork, which made some sense, as there were a lot of nutcases in the world but also seemed to exist only to prolong the process.

"You'll need background checks, finger-prints and passports," Mary Alice explained.

"I have my passport," Cristina said. "I did two semesters of study abroad, and I keep it renewed."

"Me too, I had a conference in London just last year," Burke added. Cristina winced at the mention of this conference. He had badly wanted her to go, but she simply couldn't have gotten away that week.

"Okay then. We'll have a social worker call to schedule the beginning of your home study. This can take a few months to complete, so we'll get it moving as quickly as possible. We'll also ask for the first payment during the home study," she continued, shuffling the papers she had strewn about into her file.

"Okay then," Burke said, reaching over the desk to shake the woman's hand. Cristina followed suit and they left the office together.

In the car Cristina found that she regained the ability to breathe. "We're on our way," Burke commented, his hands on the steering wheel but the key not in the ignition.

"Yeah," Cristina agreed.

He peered at her, sidelong, "Are you still okay?"

"Huh? Yeah I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" Cristina asked, aware that she was being defensive.

"I don't know," Burke said with a shrug, "This is a lot to absorb."

Cristina sighed. "If I'm in anyway not okay, it's simply because I don't like the idea of a group of people deciding whether or not I am fit to be a mother," she said.

Burke nodded understandingly. "Ah, I thought it might be something like that. You have nothing to worry about, Cristina. First of all, you're a successful surgeon with a very good stable income which will please them. You've had no psychotic episodes, your background is clean. Moreover, you are an amazing woman, and a hard worker. You have every qualification to be a mother." He pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it. "Who ever has told you that you _wouldn't_ make a good mother?"

"Well," Cristina said with a smirk, "My mother, but she's still in shock that I actually brought you home, let alone married you, so maybe she shouldn't count."

"Maybe not," Burke agreed with a smile.

"I just don't like not being in control," Cristina grumbled. "It's stupid, I know, but--."

"I understand, completely," Burke said. "But you're a surgeon, you know that there are certain things we just can't control."

"I know," Cristina sighed. "I just never thought having kids or not would be one of them."

Burke squeezed her hand, and then started to pull out of the parking lot.

"Plus, that Mary Alice bothers me. I mean, what's up with the royal 'we'?"

"How do you know it's a royal 'we'?" Burke demanded as he pulled out. "Want to go get coffee?"

"Of course. Well, unless she had an invisible conjoined twin, she was using royal 'we'."

Burke shook his head and laughed. "I love you."

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Something was not right. Nothing had been said out right, hell, nothing had been done out right, but there was something different in Derek's world. He thought about this as he cast his line out in the early dawn light by the creek on his property. He often came out and fished on mornings when he didn't work, it gave him a chance to think.

When he had come home the night before, he had pulled up to the house at the same time as Meredith did returning from her father's. He had planned on meeting her there and surprising her, but the flight had been slightly delayed and it had taken him a while to get Addison situated to his satisfaction at her house, so he had decided to wait at the house.

He had kissed Meredith hello and moved to get Lydia out of the car, but Meredith was already there. She was obviously working on Meredith-autopilot, so he let her carry Lydia in and begin her bedtime ritual.

He had greeted the dog, and gone upstairs when he heard bathwater running. He'd put his arms around Meredith's waist and she'd leaned into him. "I'm glad you're home," she murmured. "You must be tired."

"Not any more than you, I'm sure. With two observations and Lydia sick, that seems to equal no sleep for Meredith to me."

"I guess," she'd said, shrugging and pulling away a little to offer Lydia her arm and help her climb into the tub. She'd knelt to help the sleepy child wash and Derek had retreated. He'd kissed Lydia good night before Meredith read to her, and then gone into their bedroom to wait. When Meredith climbed into bed she had leaned against him and let him hold her, so that, at least had not changed.

"How was your dad's?" he'd asked, as she turned off the lamp.

"Lydia had fun with her cousins," she had replied, and there had been something rough around the edges of her voice.

"And you?" he'd prodded; gently rubbing her shoulders and feeling her relax against his touch.

"I liked seeing her happy," she'd replied simply.

She had gone to sleep without much more conversation, but he'd lain awake trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

There was a tug at his line, suddenly, and he began to reel in the fish that had bitten. This took his full concentration, and he smiled as he finally landed it in the pink

light.

When he turned to the house he saw Meredith in the window, he smiled and she waved at him. He took the hook out of the fish's mouth and took it in to clean it.

"I didn't realize you were going to go foraging this morning," Meredith teased, replacing three cereal bowls into the cabinet.

"I'm home, I forage," he said, kissing her on the forehead. That was one thing about Meredith; she never minded the fish in the house so long as he cleaned up after himself.

"Want some trout for breakfast, Lydia?" he asked.

Lydia was sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hand. She shrugged.

"Someone's still sleepy," Meredith said, running a hand through Lydia's curly hair and stifling a yawn herself.

"More than one someone I'd say," Derek said. "Well, sit down, my ladies, and await this wonderful trout fish the man is providing."

"Chauvinist," Meredith said, poking her tongue out at him.

"I call 'em like I see 'em," he said and she laughed. He turned back to the fish and was surprised when he felt Meredith's thin arms around his waist and her head on his shoulder.

"Hey there," he said, turning his head to her a little.

She didn't say anything, at first, just nuzzled into him. Then, after he had to shift a little to work on the fish, she murmured, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," he responded, "So much."

She nodded into his shoulder, and he got a feeling that the week hadn't been as easy as she claimed it had been. Probably, having to spend an entire afternoon at her father's had been the breaking point. He reached up and took her arm, bringing it up to his lips and kissing it. She giggled.

It was a perfect moment, one in which he decided that everything was going to be okay after all. And then there was a crash.

Meredith pulled away from him and they both whirled around. Spock had started barking, and Lydia lay on the floor, thrashing. Meredith was the first to get to her, because Derek paused for a nanosecond to wipe fish goop off of his hands.

"She's seizing!" Meredith announced.

"The shunt," Derek groaned. "It must be malfunctioning."

"Thank you, Dr. Obvious," Meredith snapped, pulling Lydia onto her lap and holding her as well as she could. "Call the OR, we're taking her in."

Feeling ultimate helplessness Derek went for the phone and dialed the number automatically.

"Debby, it's Derek Shepard, page Dr. Weir," he said, watching Meredith rocking back and forth on the floor, with their daughter in her arms the seizure was stopping, and the dog was hovering over Meredith's shoulder, being Lydia's guard dog, as always. "Damn it, hurry," he swore into the phone. He knelt by Meredith, holing the cordless phone between his ear and his shoulder. He put his hand on her back and she looked up at him with wild eyes.

"Daddy?" Lydia murmured, coming out of the seizure, "Mommy?"

"It's okay, baby," Meredith murmured. "You had a seizure. We're going to take you to the hospital."

"For day-care?" Lydia asked, and Meredith let out a sound that was halfway a laugh, but perhaps closer to a hysterical sob. Derek held her shoulder firmly.

"Hello?" the voice said in his ear, and it took him a minute to place it.

"Huh? Oh, Dr. Weir. It's Derek Shepard. Lydia's shunt is malfunctioning and we're bringing her in," he said, in a no-nonsense voice. "Book an OR."

"Yes sir," the doctor said on the other end, and Derek hung up the phone.

"They're booking an OR," he said, "Let's go." He took Lydia from Meredith's arms so that she could stand up. She ducked into the living room and got a blanket to wrap the child up in. Derek put it around her, and put his other arm around Meredith's shoulders, leading her to the car.

She climbed into the passenger seat and took Lydia onto her lap. The little girl was crying softly, her fingers curled in Meredith's hair. The half minute it took for Derek to get around the car did nothing but piss him off. He wanted to be at the hospital already.

It was early, at least, so the traffic was not bad. Derek knew that he broke a rule or two attempting to take the fastest route to the hospital, but he found that he could not care less. Meredith clutched his hand. Her was mouth in a firm line as she murmured to Lydia. He knew that she was fighting to hold onto her control, in the same way that he was, and she was doing well. He squeezed her fingers and at one traffic light that threatened to last forever he brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed them.

They didn't go through the ER, instead he pulled into the garage and they went through onto the OR floor. Dr. Weir was waiting for them by the elevator, alerted by a frantic call from Meredith's cellphone. Derek wasn't even sure that he had brought his wallet.

They took Lydia to a room and Meredith began taking off her Little Mermaid pajamas. For some reason, being put into a hospital bed made Lydia begin to cry even harder, in a bone shattering way that was reminiscent of her mother. Derek pulled her into his arms, sliding onto the bed, and murmured to her. "It's okay, baby," he soothed, "Daddy's got you, and Mommy's here. Just take deep breaths, baby, deep breaths."

Meredith stood by the bedside table, folding the clothes almost obsessively, and he could tell that she was following his instructions as well. After a moment Lydia's breathing steadied, and he laid her back on the pillow, wiping the teardrops from her cheeks with one finger.

"There," he said, "No more tears."

Meredith sat up on the bed with them, and he pulled her to him, her head on his chest. "Don't," she whispered, pulling away. "I'll lose it." She smiled shakily, and took one of Lydia's small hands.

"Dr. Grey, Dr. Shepard," a nurse said, coming into the room. "I'll need one of you to fill out the paperwork so we can admit her and get this going."

"I'll do it," Derek said, sliding down. "They need to do the scan ASAP, and get her onto the table," he reasoned aloud.

Meredith nodded once. "It's my specialty," she said, blandly, her eyes not leaving Lydia's face.

Derek went out into the hall and began to sign forms, filling out the information on the shunt, and where it drained to (her left lung), remembering the day that it had been put in. Five years was and unusual amount of time for a shunt to last in such a small child, he reassured himself as he signed the CAT scan consent form.

Just as he was about to go back into the hospital room, Izzie Stevens nearly ran into him. "Sorry, Dr. Shepard," she said, automatically, and then her eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"" she said with a harshness, that he assumed came from preoccupation.

"Lydia," he said simply and her eyebrows shot up.

"The shunt?" she asked, and he nodded. "I'll let everyone know," she said. "George, Callie and Alex are on duty, but Cristina and Burke aren't."

"Call them," Derek said and then he went into the room. Meredith was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He came up behind her, putting his arms around her. "I saw Izzie. She's alerting the troops."

"Good. They're her family," Meredith said. "Family," she repeated. "Should I call Dad?"

Derek took a deep breath, "Probably, Mer," he said. "He'll want to know. Susan will want to come up here and fret."

"Did you just say fret?" Meredith asked, shakily pulling out her phone.

"I did," he affirmed. "That's the word to describe your stepmother. She frets."

Meredith laughed, but it was hollow and her eyes darted to Lydia. Derek took the little girl's other hand and squeezed it, mouthing 'kiss de girl' at her as he leaned in to kiss her forehead. She giggled.

"Hi, Daddy. It's Meri," Meredith said into the phone, one finger nervously twirling her hair around itself. "Yeah. Something's wrong. Lydia's shunt's malfunctioning. We're at Seattle Grace, and they haven't tested yet, but Derek and I know. You don't have to come up right now, but I'll keep you--. Oh. Fourth floor, room 421. Yeah. Okay, I'll see you then." She closed the phone and let out a huge whoosh of air.

"He's coming. They're both coming. To wait with us," Meredith said, as if she could not believe it.

"Of course they are," Derek said. "They love her, and you."

"Yeah," Meredith said. "I know…. I guess I just think of family as being us, and George, Callie, Izzie, Alex and Cristina. I never--." She was cut off, however, by a nurse coming into the room. She carried a small cup of sedative that would calm Lydia for the CAT scan.

After that it was all a rush, and a waiting game. They waited for scans and for results, and for Dr. Weir to finish rounding. This never seemed to take as long when you were on the other side, Derek mused, when he and Meredith started their fifth game of I Spy and Lydia slept.

"Um… oh, the flounder on Lydia's PJs," he said in response to 'something yellow', and then there was a knock at the door before Cristina Yang barged in.

Meredith automatically put a finger to her lips and the outburst that was about to come didn't, as Cristina glanced at the sleeping Lydia. All the anger in Cristina's face, probably from not having been called directly, melted and she went to the little girl, as Burke came more sedately into the room and nodded at Derek, he nodded back.

"Pauvre ange," Cristina murmured over Lydia, and then looked up at Meredith and Derek. "So she didn't have your bug then, Mer?"

Meredith winced and shook her head.

"Mer? Were you sick?" Derek asked, and Cristina pointedly looked away.

"Yeah, I didn't want you to worry," Meredith said, pulling her legs into a cross-legged position. "I wasn't that sick." Cristina snorted. "I wasn't!" Meredith protested.

"Okay," Cristina said, "But I beg--."

Then the door opened and Olivia came in. "We're going to take her back now," she said. Meredith and Derek slid off of the bed, and Burke and Cristina stepped back respectfully. Meredith kissed Lydia's forehead and her eyes flickered open.

"Hey baby," Meredith said. "It's time for your surgery now. Olivia's going to be with you, okay?"

"Mommy!" Lydia cried out, tears springing to her eyes.

"Hey there, big girl," Derek said. "None of that. You're going to be just fine. We'll all be here when you get done, okay? Grandma Susan and Grandpa, Aunt Cristina, Aunt Izzie, Uncle George, Uncle Preston, everyone. You're our brave girl."

"Okay," Lydia said, sniffling.

"We love you, baby," Meredith said, kissing Lydia's forehead once more. Olivia and another nurse began to move the bed, and they followed her into the hall. Those of their little family that were on-call were in the hallway, and stopped to talk to Lydia and give her kisses. When they got to the red line Derek and Meredith kissed her once more, and Meredith buried her face in Derek's chest as they wheeled Lydia through the doors.

Gently he supported her as they walked back to the hospital room. He sat in the big chair and she perched on his lap. He rocked her gently, and he felt her whole body shudder as she started to sob.

"She's going to be just fine," he soothed. "You know that."

"I know," Meredith sobbed. "I could do that procedure in my sleep. But it's not someone else's child Derek. She's ours."

"I know," he agreed, "I know."

As he held Meredith, others began to trickle into the room. Burke and Cristina both sat against the wall opposite, Cristina's head on Burke's shoulder, Alex came in, filling out a chart. Izzie wandered in after scrubbing out and ran a finger over the shirt of Lydia's pajamas before having to dash out again on a page. George's shift ended, and he took position on the floor against the dresser.

"Cristina?" Meredith asked, after a while, when Derek had thought she might have fallen asleep.

"Yeah, Mer?" Cristina asked, sitting up a little.

"How'd the adoption thing go?"

"Pretty well," Cristina smiled. "It'll be a while, but hopefully within the year Lydia will have another playmate."

Meredith nodded, as the hospital room door opened again, to reveal Thatcher and Susan. "Hi Daddy," Meredith said, and then surprised Derek and probably herself by standing up to hug him. "She's in surgery. No word yet."

"Here, Susan," Derek said, offering Susan his seat. He sat back on the floor, and Meredith reclaimed her place on his lap.

"Do you want me to go observe?" Alex offered, suddenly, looking up.

"No," Meredith said. "Please stay."

Alex nodded and looked back down at the chart he was writing in.

The hours crept by, although he had to admit the pack in the room were very good at inventing games to make time past. He suspected them of long hours spent doing this as interns.

George went to the gift shop and returned with a book of Disney trivia. He bought it for Lydia, but they ended up going through it. Derek was rather surprised with Cristina and Meredith were tying for the lead in their small battle.

"I had a Disney obsessed roommate once," Meredith explained, "And I'm raising a five year old girl. What's your excuse?" she said to Cristina, who was building a tiny fort out of plastic straws.

"My mother," Cristina said simply and Burke laughed.

"Dr. Grey?" Dr. Weir said, coming into the room, "Dr. Shepard? We're through. Lydia made it through very well." Meredith jumped to her feet, pulling Derek with her and smiled.

"Can I see her?" she asked.

"In a little while, since she's a minor," Dr. Weir said, and then hurried out. Derek made a mental note to ask for further details on the procedure lately. In half an hour a nurse came to take Meredith up to recovery, and they soon brought a very drowsy Lydia back to her room. She woke off and on through the afternoon, sometimes crying, but always there were plenty of people to comfort her.

Susan and Thatcher brought her a stuffed bear from the gift-shop, and George brought her candy. Cristina told her a story, having to do with a 'not stupid princess'. It was late in the evening before they were alone with just their daughter. She was dozing, and Meredith was lying on the floor, her head on Derek's lap.

"We made it through this, Derek," she said with a smile. "She's going to be okay."

"Yeah, she is," he agreed. "She's strong, just like you."

"I'm not that strong," Meredith disagreed. "I just pretend to be." She yawned then, and Derek did not want to argue, he just shook his head and resumed stroking her hair.

A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. "Dr. Shepard?" a nurse said quietly. "Phone for you."

He stood up, curiously, and went out into the hall, blinking at the light.

"Hello? This is Dr. Derek Shepard."

"Derek?" Addison said, sounding slightly panicked. "It's Addison. I think I need help. I fell, and I think passed out. I don't know. I don't know what to do. Derek, I'm scared."

Fear was evident in her voice and Derek's heart went out to her. He thought of his little girl in the big hospital bed, and thought Addison sounded just as scared. Except Lydia had a whole pack of people ready to fight for her, and Addison didn't.

"I'll be right there," he promised and then hung up the phone.

"Mer?" he said, quietly, going back into the room. "Addiosn's in trouble."

"What's wrong?" Meredith asked, and to her credit, despite the danger her own daughter had just been in, she sounded fearful.

"She collapsed and she thinks she passed out. I'm going to go over there and see what's going on, and then I'll go home and get your things and Lydia's. I'll be back in a few hours, okay?" She nodded and he went over and kissed her. "I love you. You amazed me today, but you do that every day." She smiled and shook her head as he went over to kiss Lydia.

"Get better fast, baby," he whispered. "I love you to the moon and back."

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Izzie sat cross-legged on the top bunk of an on-call room. She should have been sleeping, she was on-call all night, but she couldn't. In a strange way, she couldn't focus enough to sleep; instead she sat there, staring at the wall opposite her. Her mind was full, thinking about how frightening it had been to see Lydia going through what she had been through today. Also watching Meredith and Shepard. Knowing what she thought she knew. It was confusing.

She had watched Shepard carefully when she was in the room with them and she couldn't really tell what was going on. If anything really was. But she couldn't explain seeing Shepard with Addison any other way.

And Meredith depended on him so much. She couldn't bear to see her friend break, which was why she hadn't said anything. She sighed to herself and threw a pen against the wall. As it hit the floor, the on-call room door opened and Alex came in, bounding onto her bunk in one swift leap.

"Hey," she said in greeting.

"Hey," he echoed, sitting close against her, shoulder to shoulder. "You okay?" he added after a minute.

She shrugged. "I guess. It just sucks, you know, to have a kid that little be going through all that."

"Yeah it does," Alex agreed, sucking a hiss of air in between his teeth. "She's a trooper." Izzie nodded and smiled as she thought of the times she had watched Alex playing with Lydia. He would swing her up in the air, with Meredith watching nervously off to the side. Lydia would squeal with excitement. He was natural with her.

"Alex?" Izzie asked, nervously, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

"Yeah?" he said, laying his head in her lap.

"Alex, I need to tell you something, it's serious."

"What is it, Izzie? I'm listening," he assured her, peering up at her with concern.

She paused for a minute to figure out exactly how to word what she was going to say. "I…. I don't know how to tell you this…. The thing is…. I'm not sure that I want that….." she trailed off, uncertainty winning over.

"Want what, Izzie?" he prodded, gently, taking her hand in his.

She took a rattling breath. "I don't know that I want kids, Alex. I used to, used to have the white picket fence image, but now, I don't know. It's not perfect, ever. I like my life. It's not that I don't' want to be with you. I do. But I just thought you should know that I'm not sure if I ever want kids."

Alex nodded slowly, and then sat up, his hand still in hers. He slowly took her other hand and met her eyes, turning her head with his eyes to make him face her. "Isobel Stevens, it's you I want to be with. Yeah, I kind of want kids, but if you don't, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. Hell, many people would be happy if I never passed my genes on." He smirked and Izzie laughed, although tears were welling in her eyes. "You don't have to worry about losing me, not over that…." He paused and licked his lips. "Not over that," he repeated, "and not over anything else. I don't want you ever to leave me, Izzie.

"Izzie?" he said, and as he continued she thought that she might be dreaming. "Will you marry me?"

"What?" she burst out. "You're proposing? Here? Now? Seriously?"

"What better place?" Alex said. "It's where we spend most of our time. I'm sorry I don't have a ring, but if you want to pick one out…. Assuming of course…, Well, what do you say?"

Never before had Izzie heard Alex be so near to speechless, and she had to admit that it was amusing. In response to his fumbling she kissed him to shut his mouth, and then nodded. "Yes," she said. "I'll marry you."

Alex's face broke out into a grin. "Well all right then," he said, and then kissed her, leaning her back on to the pillow. She wrapped her legs around him and felt a weight be lifted off of her, even as his weight was on top of her.

A/N I'm at school! Very exciting. I think I may have just realized that this one may not be as long as I Wish I May or Serenity (chapter wise, on that one, as I think it's already much longer than Serenity….), but after this I have the last chapter of In My Daughter's Eyes and a one-shot that is completely different from all of these :)

Review!


	7. Some People Claim

**Chapter Six**

There were many things that Derek did that Meredith did not understand. Usually, however, they were just things like not putting the toilet seat down, even when he lived with two females, or letting Lydia stay up past her bed time. They were not full on, huge, crazy things like, for instance, inviting his ex-wife to stay with them for the week before she went back to New York.

To his credit, she mused, as she pushed the vacuum violently down the upstairs hallway halfway through that week, he had at least asked her first. And it hadn't even been in an "Addison's staying with us, okay?" kind of way. When he had returned from checking on her and getting Meredith and Lydia overnight bags he had sat down next to her on the floor, and taken her hand.

"Is Addison okay?" she had asked tiredly.

He had shifted, reaching over to push her hair out of her eyes. "I think so. I think so, but Meredith…. I'm worried about her staying alone like this. She's going to be weak, and you know Addison, she'd hate admitting that. I'm almost surprised that this incident scared her enough to call me."

"She's proud," Meredith had observed. "If she'd just tell someone else, Izzie, or someone. Izzie still goes and sees my mother, you know and--."

He had nodded, and then squeezed her hand to cut her off. "I know. I've told Addison that she needs to tell someone else, but like you said, she's proud. But I was thinking, she goes back to New York. She's asked me to go with her again, but I said I'd have to ask you. But I was thinking…. We have the guest room that almost never gets used," Meredith's jaw dropped when she had figured out where he was going.

"You want Addison to stay with us?" she had asked, incredulously.

"Just until her first chemo, and maybe a little while after. I'm worried about her, Mer, and I know that you are too. I'm worried that if she shuts herself off like this she _won't_ recover, even if her cancer's not advanced."

Meredith had turned away from him drawing her knees up to her chest. "I'll have to think about it," she told him, and he nodded.

"That's all I can ask, babe," he'd said, kissing her just above the ear. "I'm on-call, so I'm going to go change. I'll get someone to bring a bed in here for you, okay?"

"Yeah," Meredith had said, but she wasn't really listening. She was thinking.

As he'd closed the door she had had a sudden memory of a time when she was pregnant that she had worried that Derek was about to tell her that Addison was moving in…. that was when he told her that she was the love of his life. She shook her head at the bitter laugh that emerged from her.

Her second thought had been to tell him no, just because he had given him the opportunity to and she really didn't _want_ his ex-wife living with them for any amount of time, but she'd known that that was just bitterness. She could not do that to a person, one whom she respected, even if she was her husband's ex. And she knew why Derek was taking so much time to care for Addison. He had a bond with her, in a way it was like Meredith and her father, she realized. And he also felt that he owed Mark, for whatever reason.

Meredith did not completely understand that one. Mark had slept with Derek's wife, but she thought that when Derek had been unable to save Mark, the man had reverted in Derek's mind to his best friend. His best friend who had just happened to be engaged to his ex-wife. She remembered Derek talking to Mark, or the shell of Mark, at Roseridge. This his way of repaying a debt, in a way.

She had continued to think about it all through that long night, and when Derek came in the next morning to check on Lydia she had made her decision. She had said yes.

Now, she fought with the vacuum in the hallway. It was her day off, but Derek was working and Lydia had gone to day-care. Addison was in the guest room, where she stayed for most of the time. Derek could convince her to come out for meals, and occasionally to watch TV, but it was really all very awkward.

Meredith pushed the vacuum around a lamp, before she realized that she had tangled herself up in the cord. "Crap," she said, and attempted to get herself untangled, but lost her balance and fell forward. The vacuum came unplugged and the lamp fell over too, landing heavily across her back. "Ow!" she exclaimed, but she was more annoyed than hurt.

"Meredith?" Addison called, her head poking out of the guest room. Her bright red eyebrows shot up, as she came over. "Need a hand?" she asked, picking up the lamp.

"Could probably use one, yeah," Meredith agreed, and took Addison's offered hand to pull up on. She untangled herself from the now-loose cord and turned away from Addison to wrap it back around to vacuum and wait for her face to turn back from pink.

"You all right?" Addison asked after a moment.

"Yeah, I'm good," Meredith said, turning around with one hand on the vacuum handle. "Can I get you anything?"

Addison's eyebrows came together. "No, and I wish you'd stop asking me that. You and Derek both. I'm not completely useless, you know."

Meredith was somewhat surprised by this outburst, but realized she understood. She remembered feeling useless, during her time on bed-rest during her pregnancy with Lydia. Also, if Addison was feeling well enough to ask to help her than she was probably well enough to do it, and should. Feeling useless had been the reason several of her patients had lost their battles.

"All right," she said. "I hate housework, anyway. It's times like these when I miss living with Izzie," she smiled. "You can start the dusting downstairs, if you want."

Addison nodded. "All right. Where are the dustrags?"

"In the bucket at the bottom of the stairs," Meredith said, pointing. "I'll be down as soon as I finish the vacuuming."

"So if you're not down in ten minutes I should call 911?" Addison joked and Meredith smiled. Maybe it wasn't entirely awkward.

She went down to work in the kitchen five minutes later, and Addison came in to dust the shelves around the kitchen desk. They worked in silence for a little while, Meredith cleaning the windows and Addison dusting, and then Addison spoke up. "I guess you think I'm nuts for not wanting to tell anyone about… about this," she said, gesturing to her chest.

"No," Meredith said, after a moment. "Not nuts. But I do think you're judging them wrong. I thought about not telling them when I was pregnant, which is an entirely different situation and nowhere near as dire, but I was scare senseless. Anyway, I did, obviously, and I found out how truly supportive they can be. Particularly Izzie and she's your protégé."

"Yeah. I know, they'd be great and supportive," Addison acknowledged, sinking into a kitchen chair. "But I think that may be why I don't want to tell them. I mean, ever since what happened to Mark I've been Miss Independent. I've kept my distance, even from Izzie. I guess having them be supportive and everything would make it seem like I was as weak… as weak as I sometimes think I am."

Meredith had long since stopped washing the windows, and now she came over and sat on a chair near the other woman. "Addison, keep in mind who's telling this to you, because I am probably one of the weakest people, oh ever, but to me you are the epitome of strength. I'd be the one whining all the time about life and fate and all that crap if this happened to me.

"I do understand why you don't want people to know. And I'm not going to lie and say that I don't mind you coming to us, but I'll do whatever I can for you while you're here, all right? And all I'm asking is that you get better so people can stop asking me pointedly if I know where you are and you can go back to work and just be the attending that my interns complain to me about."

Addison smiled. "I'll see what I can do about that," she promised with a smile. "And thank you, Meredith, for understanding."

"Any time," Meredith said. "Now come on and give me a hand with these windows."

It was about an hour later when Derek came home. He came into the kitchen, where Meredith was emptying all the rotting things out of the refrigerator and Addison was sweeping.

"What's going on in here?" Derek asked. "Addison! What the hell are you doing?"

"Sweeping, Derek," Addison pointed out, and Meredith snickered.

"Sit down!" Derek ordered. "Meredith, why are you letting her exert herself like this!"

"For Pete's sake, Derek," Meredith said, closing the refrigerator door, "She's not going to break. Besides, she asked me if she could help."

"It's progress, Derek," Addison pointed out. "If I were a patient you'd be glad."

"But you're not," Derek exclaimed. "You're…." he trailed off, glancing at her, and then at Meredith, as Lydia scooted in, then pulled up on a kitchen chair to watch. "Well, you're Addison," he spluttered finally, seeming fairly sheepish.

"Good save," Meredith said, not quite knowing why her voice came out icy. She let Derek kiss her cheek, but she felt herself go stiff when he did it.

"Mommy, I made a picture for you!" Lydia exclaimed suddenly, pulling it out of the backpack that Derek had put on the table. Meredith quickly turned her attention to her daughter and the awkward moment passed, albeit slowly.

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Izzie couldn't believe that she was in a jewelry store, with Alex, but she was. She was in a jewelry store with Alex picking out her engagement ring. Disbelief didn't even begin to cover her feelings as the jeweler, an elderly man who seemed to have a magnifying monocle permanently attached to his eye, brought out a case of rings with a shaking hand.

"Price isn't an issue," Alex had said when they first came into the store. The man's eyebrow had gone up into his receding gray hairline and he had gone to the locked glass case to retrieve this box of rings.

"Go for it, Izz," Alex said, putting his hand on the small of her back and pushing her gently to the counter. Izzie looked up at him nervously, not wanting to seem greedy or material or anything else that this could symbolize. She wished that he had just bought the ring and surprised her, but that wasn't how Alex worked. He always wanted to please her.

Izzie glanced at the case, and then had a thought. She closed her eyes and tried to picture the perfect engagement ring. Once she had the picture in her head, of a gold band with a small diamond in the center, framed on either side by gold, she opened her eyes and attempted to find the closest thing to it in the box.

She looked past anything silver, or anything with colored stones. Alex's hand was in hers, squeezing gently as she looked carefully at each ring, knowing that there had to one that would stand out to her. And then, just as she was beginning to give up hope, there it was: the perfect ring. She reached for it and took it out of the case, slipping her hand out of Alex's to try the ring on her finger.

It slid on without any problem, fitting just below her second knuckle. She held her hand out to admire it, to see if it really looked right, and she smiled. It was perfect. The old jeweler's eyes crinkled merrily as he smiled, and the monocle slipped out, revealing a sparkling blue eye that matched his other. He seemed nicer to Izzie, now, and she met his gaze.

"That's the one," he commented, taking her finger tips to hold her hand up to the light. "It suits you, girl. Lots of folks come in here and agonize for hours over the right ring, the right cut. Not you, you know what you want. Decisive," he added, nodding at Alex.

Izzie almost laughed. The word decisive had never fit when applied to her. She was bad at choosing, professions, men, restaurants. Maybe she didn't make bad choices, like Meredith, but she was simply bad at the actual choosing part. Until now, it seemed. She had a great job, a great boyfriend (no, _fiancé_) and she had just chosen her own engagement ring with no hours worth of hesitation.

Alex wrote a check for the ring, and Izzie pointedly looked away. She wasn't very comfortable with this, but Alex was the gentleman, always had been. Well, not always, but always since they started dating steadily again. She took his left hand again as they went out of the store, holding her left hand out to allow the diamond to glisten in the sunlight.

"Thank you, Alex," she said, kissing his cheek. "It's gorgeous."

Alex shrugged. "It's a nice ring. What's really gorgeous is the hand that it's on."

Izzie couldn't help but blush at that. It sounded sappy, but she liked it. Everything seemed perfect, with the blue sky overhead and the sun shining. As she got into Alex's car, though, she knew that everything wasn't really perfect in her life. As she left the townhouse, George and Callie had been arguing over something, and she thought she heard glass break, but Alex had been there smiling and ready to go, so she hadn't gone to investigate. She probably should have.

She would have given anything not to have to work that day, but she had a twelve hour shift starting at noon, part of making up for Addison's absence. Alex convinced her to at least get lunch before going to the hospital though, and so she attempted to push the sordid lives of her friends out of her mind, and just enjoy the morning with her fiancé. Fiancé, fiancé, fiancé.

She hadn't told anyone yet, she wanted to wait until she had the ring. Maybe it was the fact that with Denny she hadn't had a ring, and maybe it was something else, but it didn't seem real to her until she had the ring. She wasn't going to think about Denny.

She had the ring. It was real. She smiled, and kept glancing at it over her turkey sandwich throughout the meal. Alex had a funny little smirk on his face, not like the one he normally wore. It was knowing, but it was also happy and not sarcastic. Their fingers were linked over the table, and they talked of trivial things, which made it better. To Izzie, it was a mark of how close they were.

As Alex got up to throw away their trash he leaned over and whispered in her ear, "If you didn't have to work in ten minutes I'd totally do you now."

Izzie laughed into her coke and swatted at him playfully. He wiggled his eyebrows and continued to the trashcan. Only when she was sure that he was not looking did she allow herself to shiver.

He dropped her off at the hospital, although he didn't come on-call until six. She got on again at six the next day, so the car swap would work until they were on-call together again. It was lucky. She felt lucky over everything. Life was good.

She changed in the locker room, alone but for a weedy looking intern, who belonged to a resident who she didn't know well. She changed quickly, it was only eleven forty-five and she wanted to find Meredith before her shift started, to tell her the news. She smiled at her ring again as she slipped her coat on. She chided herself for being so obsessed with the ring. It was the human attraction to sparkly things, she supposed. She also realized that she should not have made fun of Meredith for being so enamored of her engagement and wedding rings, because really, they were that amazing.

In her search for Meredith she passed the fourth floor conference room and passed, thinking that she heard Meredith's voice. A brief stop proved her right. She lingered on the edge of the door, unseen through the half-open door, but able to hear. She knew it was wrong to be eavesdropping, but it was just Meredith and Derek.

"Tell me again when you'll be gone?" Meredith was asking.

"The eighteenth through the twenty-fourth. Friday through Thursday. It's not even a week, Mer. She has to be there on Monday, and she'll be ready to travel by Wednesday."

"The twenty-third?" Meredith said.

"Yeah, that's it," Derek said, and Izzie thought she heard a noise like the closing of his Sidekick. "Mer, I've got to go check on the Emerson case. I'll see you later. We're still taking Lydia to get pizza tonight, right?"

"Yeah," Meredith said, and Izzie knew she was distracted. She knew why too, and Shepard seemed to be completely oblivious. "Love you."

They kissed, and Shepard swooped out of the room, barely noticing Izzie. She waited a few minutes, allowing Mer the time to collect herself if needed before going into the room.

"Oh, hey Mer," she said, casually, as if she had just happened to enter the room and find Meredith there, sitting on the conference room table. "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine, why?" Meredith said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"No reason," Izzie said, and despite everything she couldn't stop a grin from spreading across her face.

"What is it Izzie?" Meredith said, obviously suspecting a secret.

Izzie didn't answer, just held out her left hand. Meredith gasped and then squealed.

"Oh my God, Izzie! Seriously?"

"Seriously!" Izzie agreed nodding. Meredith jumped up and hugged her.

"Congratulations!" she said. "Have you set a date? I'm sorry, I'm being pushy, it's just, that's all of us but George isn't it? It's almost perfect."

"Yup," Izzie agreed, not allowing her smile to fade, even though she knew that George and Callie might be on the rocks, and Shepard might be having an affair and was at least missing his wife's birthday and that things were far from perfect.

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Later, Meredith would decide that it was all Izzie's fault. This wasn't exactly true, if she really thought about it, but it was easier to lay the blame elsewhere. Technically, the blame lay mostly with, as a matter of fact, solely with her because she was the one who made the actual choices, but hey, she wasn't the best at taking responsibility.

So, it was all Izzie's fault.

Meredith was glancing at a chart at the nurses' station on the fifth day of Derek's second absence. Izzie came up beside her and pushed a cup of coffee into her hand. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," Meredith replied, distractedly.

"Listen, I need a consult on a baby. I need George on it too, and I've already got him meeting me in the conference room. Come with me and I'll discuss the case with both of you at once."

Meredith bit her lip. She had really wanted to avoid Izzie and George today. "Um, okay. Just let me check on this post-op really quickly."

"No!" Izzie said, and Meredith looked at her side-long. "I mean, George has to scrub-in, in like ten minutes. It won't take long, promise."

"I didn't see his name on the board," Meredith protested, suddenly suspicious of Izzie. Izzie ignored this and took Meredith's arm, guiding her to the conference. By the time they reached to door Meredith had a pretty good idea of what was going on and she was pretty sure that she was going to kill Izzie at some point in the near future.

"Happy birthday, Meredith!" a dozen or so people exclaimed as they entered the conference room.

"Happy birthday, Mommy!" Lydia echoed, from her spot in Cristina's arms. She reached out for Meredith, who took her, looking around the room in shock.

She really hated surprises. Really _really_ hated surprises and she knew that Izzie knew it. And she hated corny things, in general, and the 'Happy Birthday, Meredith' letters strung up across the room were definitely corny. When she turned to Izzie to say something though she saw the grin that lit up Izzie's face and she couldn't ruin this for her. Instead, she pushed a smile on to her face.

She definitely wanted to pitch a fit over all of this, but she had Lydia exclaiming that she had helped Aunt Tizzie make the cake, and even Cristina seemed happy, as she came over to assert the fact that this had been in no way her idea, because she knew that Meredith hated surprises.

"It's fine," Meredith reassured her. "Don't worry about it. It's nice to know that you guys remembered and everything. No big deal." She then took the knife that someone handed her and cut the cake, giving Lydia the first, small, piece.

She continued to smile and make small talk, projecting the image of happiness. Attempting to be fine, like she said she was. Lydia helped, because she was very excited over the fact that it was her mommy's birthday, and had, in fact, drawn her a picture of a birthday cake in daycare.

Izzie and George had presents for her, which she exclaimed over as was proper. Cristina and Burke came up to her and Burke wished her a happy birthday, to which Cristina sighed impatiently.

"Yeah, happy birthday, Mer," she echoed. "Listen, Burke and I were wondering, we didn't have a chance to actually get you anything, but we'd be happy to take Lydia for you, for the night. Would that be okay?"

Meredith wanted to say no, just because she had planned her evening. She was going to take Lydia to the pool and then home where they would make popcorn and watch Beauty and the Beast. She had a slight thought of even letting Lyddie stay up past her bedtime if she pushed it at all. Still, Burke was grinning and Cristina looked slightly nervous, meaning that they both wanted to do this. She suspected that it had something to do with practicing or something.

"Um, sure," she said, making herself smile and nod. "Lyddie, come here, baby." Lydia had been over with George and William Bailey-Jones (also taken out of day-care), dancing to a CD that someone had put on. Surgeons were always ready to party, Meredith thought. She'd found that one out the hard way.

"What is it, Mommy?" Lydia asked.

Meredith put a hand in the girl's curly hair. "Would you like to stay over with Uncle Burke and Aunt Cristina tonight? Would that be okay?"

"Yup," Lydia said so quickly that Meredith looked up at Burke and Cristina who were smiling guiltily.

"I may have said something to her," Cristina said, defensively. "You always say kids should be prepared for things. Lydia, chère, tu danse bien." Lydia giggled and went back to George.

Meredith shrugged. "Okay then," she said, and wondered what she was going to do alone all evening.

"Hey Mer?" Izzie said, coming up to her, with a cup of soda in her hand. "Listen, I didn't get to see your mother this week like I normally do. I'm really sorry, but I just didn't get a chance."

Meredith put a hand on Izzie's arm and sighed. "Izz, don't worry. She…" she trailed off. "Well, one visit won't make that much of a difference."

Still, when the smoke had cleared from the party, broken off by Cristina's and Bailey's emergency pagers going off, Meredith crumpled up wrapping paper and decided that she would go visit her mother, which would at least use up some of her time that evening.

She drove to Roseridge on auto-pilot and made her way to her mother's room. Ellis lay in bed, and did not look at Meredith when she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Hi Mom," she said, setting her purse on her lap. "How are you?" There was, of course, no response. "Derek's out of town again, and Lydia's being babysat or they'd both be here. Actually," she continued, "I don't know where we'd be. It's my birthday, Mom," she said, with a sigh. She gently took her mother's hand. "I feel like that girl, from that Sixteen Candles movie. When everyone forgets her birthday. But it's worse, because everyone's remembering but the most important person."

She sighed. "I don't guess you'd care. You'd probably tell me to suck it up. But we had some good times on my birthdays. Remember my tenth one? Double digits, on a weekend. We went to the park, and the movie. It was fun. We won't go into my sixteenth birthday," she smiled and wished that her mother was really here. That they could at least be laughing about the past, and reminiscing together.

She wanted to curl up next to her mother as she had when she was a small child, but she knew that it would just break her heart that her mother would not respond. So instead she just sat there on the end of the bed, occasionally soliloquizing. She slowly drew herself up when a nurse told her that visiting hours were nearly over and kissed her mother's still forehead.

Her hands were shaking as she got into the car, and she drew out her phone. She was about to call Derek, but then she couldn't. He hadn't called her all day, and she did not want to be pathetic, or make it seem as if she were calling just to alert him to the fact that he had missed her birthday.

Sitting in the car, she was not sure where to go, until she had a thought. She had had a definitely crappy day. Crappy, in fact, did not even begin to describe it. Her daughter was in the highly capable hands of her best friend and her husband. She deserved to go somewhere and just allow herself to feel crappy.

A voice in the back of her head told her that that was the justification that had gotten her in a hell of a lot of trouble once before, but she was too upset to care. She pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Joe's.

She supposed that there were other bars, much closer to either her house or Roseridge, but she figured that she would, at least, be somewhat safe at Joe's. It was Joe after all; he'd look out for her, or risk not being invited to Thanksgiving.

She flounced into the bar and sat on a stool, next to a good looking guy who was obviously eyeing her. "Want to buy me a drink?" she said huskily.

"Um…. Sure, " he said, stammering and signaling to Joe. Once the drink had been poured Meredith took her left hand off of her thigh and placed it on the counter, her wedding band gleaming. "I'm sure my husband will appreciate that," she said and snickered at the guy's change of expression. Joe raised his eyebrows and Meredith just laughed before downing her tequila shot.

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When the doorbell rang, George was sort of expecting Callie. He hadn't thought that when she stormed out that morning she would actually not be coming back, but it was starting to look that way, and he was sort of nervous. He did not want to search her out in case this was all a misunderstanding and he would end up looking pathetic, but he was kind of nervous.

He glanced into the kitchen at Izzie before getting up to answer the door, but she was up to her elbows (with a smear on her forehead) in flour, and so he put down the medical journal he was perusing and got up to answer the door. When he flipped on the porch light and opened the door, he was surprised to see Meredith standing there, blinking in the light. Although, when he thought about it, he was not very surprised. He had a feeling that they should not have left her alone that night.

"Hey," he said, carefully. "What's going on?"

"I fell," Meredith said bluntly, holding out her hand. There was a scrap on it, but it was not bleeding badly. "Going up the steps."

It wasn't exactly the information that he was looking for, but he smiled and gestured inside. "You're lucky," he said, "You've ended up at a house that has a couple of doctors in attendance." He looked to make sure that she was following him inside, and then led her into the living room. "Sit there," he said firmly. "I'll get a band-aid."

She nodded, staring at the cut on her hand, but he could tell that it was not really what was troubling her. He went into the kitchen for a first-aid kit.

"Who was there?" Izzie asked, sliding a tray of something into the oven.

"Meredith," George said in a whisper. "She's drunk. I'll take care of her."

"Damn that man," Izzie exclaimed, brandishing a rolling pin.

"Izzie!" George hissed, digging for a band-aid. For doctors, they really weren't that well prepared for things like this. "She's in the living room! And you don't know what's going on." He finally found the band-aid box and Neosporin and headed back to Meredith.

She had a throw pillow drawn against her stomach and was curled around it, staring into space.

"Mer?" George asked, taking her injured hand. "You okay? Are you going to be sick?"

She shook her head, her mouth clenched tight. Gently he applied the cream and put the band-aid on. "There. That's all fixed," he said.

"Where's Callie?" she asked suddenly, as if sensing that all wasn't in place in the house.

"She's… not here," George said with a sigh. "I think I might have done something. I don't know. She left this morning."

"You should go after her," Meredith said, as if pointing out the obvious.

George shrugged. "I will, if she's not back soon. I don't want to pressure her."

Meredith was shaking her head before he'd said all of this. "No! Go after her!" she insisted.

"Okay," George said soothingly, smoothing Meredith's hair down. "I will, okay? You don't have to worry about me."

"It's easier," Meredith mumbled.

"Than what?"

"Worrying 'bout myself," Meredith explained. And then, without warning, she burst into tears. Her tears then became heaving sobs, and George held her against him, suddenly worried.

"Mer? It's okay. You're okay. Here, let's go upstairs and you can lie down, okay?" He put his arms around her and led her slowly to the staircase. Tears were still streaming down her face and she was off balance.

"I didn't…. I didn't want to go to an empty house," she forced out through her tears, as they were halfway up the stairs.

"It's okay, Mer. We're always here for you, okay?" he said, and she nodded against his shoulder. He took her into the room that had been hers for so long. He did not turn on the light, just led her to the bed and slipped off her shoes for her. She curled up immediately and began to sob again.

George gently rubbed circles on her back and made shushing noises. He knew that with Meredith it was just better to let her cry herself out. She'd talk when she was ready. Finally she seemed to catch her breath and she choked out, "Happy fucking birthday to me."

"Oh Mer," George breathed. "Where's Derek?"

"In New York, with Addison," she said, sitting up and wiping her eyes. She laid her head on George's shoulder.

"What are they doing there?" he asked, trying to sound casual and conversational.

"I'm not supposed to tell you," Meredith murmured, sounding for all the world like Lydia.

"I'm George, I don't tell secrets," he said with a smile. To his surprise she smiled back.

"'Kay," she said, sounding sleepy. "She's sick. Derek said he'd go with the first time, but he's worried so he went again. An' I guess he was just worried. I dunno why he forgot."

"Addison's sick?" George pressed, and Meredith nodded, lying back on the pillow.

"Yeah. She's got breast cancer. It's not far 'long. She's gonna be okay. Don't tell Iz. She doesn't want hovering."

"I won't. You should get some sleep."

"'Kay," Meredith agreed, curling up and nuzzling into the pillow. He gently covered her up and kissed her cheek. She smiled and was asleep before he stood up. As he left the room, he saw a light blinking from her purse. Glancing at her sleeping figure on the bed he fished out her phone, and saw that there were three missed calls from Derek Shepard. The phone was on silent. With a sigh he pushed talk.

"Mer, hey." Shepard said, obviously in relief.

"It's not Meredith, Derek," George said, stepping out into the hall and running a hand through his hair. "I just wanted to let you know that when you come home looking for your wife she's over here. She spent her birthday drinking at Joe's, and she's now passed out in her old bed. So, you might want to come home and apologize. Profusely."

"George? You don't know--."

"Actually, I do know what's going on. And I also know that you're hurting her for no reason. There are ways that this could have been handled, Derek, without hurting the woman who's let herself be broken by you before. You're breaking her again, and I'm not going to let you do it."

He almost expected to be hung up on, but wasn't. Instead Derek breathed in deeply. "You're right. I'm on my way. Thank you, for taking care of her. Is Lydia--?"

George shrugged. "With Cristina. Look, Shepard, Meredith's like my sister. I'm not going to let her fall." Then he hung up and bolted down the stairs. "I'm going to go find Callie!" he called to Izzie. "Meredith's asleep; she probably won't wake up until morning."

"I'll listen out for her," Izzie assured him. "It's what we're here for."

Twenty minutes later, George found Callie sitting on a bench outside the hospital. He sat next to her in silence, and she whispered, "I've been off my meds, George."

"I know," he admitted. "It's okay. I'll take care of you."

She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, and put her hand in his. It would not be easy to heal her, to get things back to where they were, but he knew that he could do it.

He only wished that he could heal both of them, but Meredith wasn't his to heal.

A/N Review please!

I love George. The Emmys were a joke, eh? I'm still alive here at college. The line break thing is still dead. Season three is still to come


	8. Why Is It Sad?

**Chapter Seven**

After hanging up with George (actually, he thought he may have gotten hung up on), Derek sat back in the uncomfortable airport seat and groaned. He ran a hand through his hair and stared at his phone. "Damn it," he murmured, angrily. Addison sat down next to him, handing him a cup of coffee. He sipped it, ignoring how hot it was. "Damn it," he swore again, into the cup.

"Did you reach Meredith?" Addison asked, sipping her own coffee.

"No," Derek replied bitterly. "But I reached George." Addison raised an eyebrow, questioningly. "After going to Joe's, she ended up at la casa intern."

"They're not interns anymore," Addison pointed out plaintively, and Derek bristled.

"Dammit, Addie, that's not the point. The point is that I've totally screwed up, and she's screwed up, and even if we ever get out of this god-damned airport all my plans were ruined."

"Easy there, Derek," Addison said, and he knew that she was trying not to roll her eyes. "I think you may be over-reacting. Yeah, seems like you two may have both made mistakes in the past twenty-four hours, but I think you'll be able to fix it."

Derek relaxed a little bit, hunching over in the highly uncomfortable airport chair. "I guess you're right. I just had all kinds of plans to surprise her tonight, since you're doing so well and able to go home early and it's her birthday. That's why I didn't call; I didn't want to give myself away."

"Mistake one," Addison said, opening a crossword book.

He looked over at her and almost smiled in spite of everything. "You're really obnoxious," he observed.

"It's why you divorced me. Well, that and your love for the woman about whom you are currently freaking out."

"And there is now nothing I can do until we get to Seattle."

"Which is anywhere between one to seven in the morning, so I'd relax if I were you. The damage is done and no more is likely to be done."

Derek sighed once again and sat back in the chair. He had to admit that she was right, and yet he couldn't relax. Five minutes later he was up and pacing around the gate, looking up at the screen with information on their plan (due to board at 1:30 in the morning), doing anything to attempt to distract himself.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice the blonde woman hurtling towards him. Almost.

"Derek!" She exclaimed, bugging him so tightly that he lost his breath.

"Savvy," he replied, gently patting her back and smiling. She pulled back and smiled at him and he prepared to have a somewhat awkward conversation, but Savvy looked just over his shoulder.

"Addison?" she asked, in confusion. "Wait… Are you two…?" she gestured between Addison and Derek, a puzzled look on her face.

"No," they said at the same time. Addison stood, and came over, putting a hand lightly on Derek's arm for support.

"Addison had to come to New York this week, and I offered to join her," Derek explained. "I hadn't been in the city for a while."

"Oh," Savvy said, obviously still confused.

Beside him, Derek heard Addison take a deep breath. "Savvy," she began, stepping forward a little and Derek realized what she was going to do. He gave her an encouraging smile. "I was here for treatment. I have breast cancer."

Derek almost expected Savvy to freak, because of her history with all things cancer, but she did not. Her face fell, just a little, but she obviously saw how hard this was for Addison to admit. She reached out a hand and put it on Addison's arm.

"Oh, Addie, I'm so sorry. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," Addison said. "Doing well according to the doctors. Anyway, they said I should be all right."

"That's good. Well if there's anything you need, any time. I can come to Seattle or meet you here," Savvy said, earnestly. "I'm really sorry we lost touch Addie. I honestly didn't mean to, and neither did Weiss. We were shaken up over Mark, but we didn't mean to abandon you."

Addison gave her a tight-lipped smile and said softly, "Thank you, Sav. That means a lot to me. So," she added, pushing (Derek knew), brightness into her voice, "What are you doing here at JFK?"

"Oh," Savvy said, obviously jarred by the sudden mood change. "Weiss is in Connecticut visiting his mother and I'm flying up to join him. Actually, my flight leaves in fifteen minutes, so I better get going. It was great to see you," she gave Addison a tight hug. "And I meant what I said. Call me when you get back to Seattle."

"Okay," Addison said, smiling.

"Bye, Derek," Savvy added, waving to him as she continued down the terminal.

"Bye, Sav," Derek called. He turned to Addison, who was sinking back into the airport seat, color draining from her immediately. He sat next to her, watching her carefully. She really wasn't all that well. He was thinking about working on her to take treatment in Seattle, but he was beginning to think that he wouldn't have to work on her.

"Are you going to call her?" he asked gently, after a moment.

She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them. When he looked at her, she seemed more peaceful than she had in a long while. "I think I will," she said, with a nod. "I actually think I will."

"Good," Derek said. "You should." Addison nodded again and reopened her crossword book. Derek looked out at the dark windows and stood, beginning to pace again.

Their plane finally left at four AM and Derek spent the entire flight fidgeting. After, he had opened the in flight magazine for the tenth time, Addison snatched it from him.

"Knock it off," she said wearily. "No doubt Meredith is still passed out and will remain so until after you don your armor and break down the door of La Casa Intern."

Derek glared at her, but he had to admit that she had a point. They arrived just after five Seattle time and Derek would have forgotten their bags had Addison not pointedly coughed when they passed the baggage claim. Armed with his bags and Addison's designer luggage, he made a beeline for the garage in which his car was parked. He loaded the bags and Addison got into the passenger's seat. He climbed in next to her and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. "Your house or ours?" he asked as he started to back out.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to pick me up," Addison teased. Then she rested her head on the window and added more tiredly: "Yours, all of my stuff is there."

"Okay," Derek said, peering at her for a second. She was doing o so well, but he worried abort her crashing "You need to get some sleep," he remarked.

"'So do you," she pointed oat, stifling a yawn. "AndI will. Then l am going to visit Mark." She added quietly. He nodded, the only thing that he could do.

At his house, the flowers that he had ordered for Meredith, once he knew that he was going to the late, still sat on the porch. He took them in and placed them on the counter in the kitchen. Spock ran to greet them and Addison volunteered to feed him so that Derek could: "Get on with his mission". He took her bags to the guest room and made sure that she was settled. He gave her a sheepish smile as she commented that she could take care of herself.

He wasn't so sure of that; she suddenly looked very pale to him and he couldn't remember when she'd last eaten Still, she assured him that she was going to sleep and the had to go fix things with his wife. His Meredith.

He let Spock into Addison's room, despite the 'no dogs upstairs' rule that Lydia hated so much, and ordered the dog to guard her. Addison smiled and shook her head at him, but he saw her fingers curl in the dog's fur and he knew that she was grateful; Even with his impatience to get to Meredith he had to make sure that Addison was okay, he just did.

He got into his car and started the drive to Meredith's townhouse. It did not take nearly as long as it usually did, and he strongly suspected (but didn't seem to be aware of the fact) that he sped on roads that were otherwise empty and knew that he wove his way dangerously through early morning traffic.

He pulled into the driveway behind Izzie's car. When he killed the ignition, he was suddenly nervous. He was worried that he had done something that was unforgivable. A voice in the back of his mind assured him that it wasn't as if he had actually done anything unforgivable, but still, this wasn't exactly something that they were going to laugh at anytime soon.

And then, there was Meredith, who had gone straight to Joe's when things wert wrong. It was her old pattern, and he thought she was over it. Thought that she had matured out of that. They had a daughter, for God's sake, and if anything had happened to Lydia that night, with both of her parents unavailable? The thought terrified him, and she had just had major surgery.

He had not known that he was angry, not through the long wait and the interminable plane ride, but sitting in the townhouse driveway he felt a small twinge of fury mingling with his guilt and worry.

_Well,_ he told himself, _The only thing to do about any of this is to face it_. So he climbed out of the car and slowly went up the steps of the townhouse. He had a key, a spare since he was now part-owner, but he decided that it would be rather rude to use it. Instead he knocked on the door, fairly sure that someone would be up.

Sure enough, after just a moment Izzie opened the door. From the look on her face she either didn't know the whole story and had jumped to conclusions or she knew the whole story.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, only opening the door a little.

"Izzie!" George's voice called from behind her. "Relax, he's not cheating!"

"He's not?" she said, over his shoulder, and then turned to Derek, "You're not?"

"No, I'm not." Derek said, slightly annoyed. "Now if you'd let me in, I'd like to see my wife."

"She's still asleep," Izzie said grudgingly as she opened the door all of the way to let him pass. "In her old room."

Derek nodded and headed in that direction.

"So how'd you know that?" she heard Izzie ask George. "What's going on here?"

Derek paused on the stairs, just to hear what George would say.

"Izzie, that's their business. Meredith probably won't even remember telling me, so I'm sure not going to tell you."

"George the martyr," observed another voice. Derek hadn't seen Callie in the living-room, hut he supposed that she must have been there. He stopped listening to them, once he was sure O'Malley really _was_ that honorable, and headed towards Meredith's room.

Her shoes were on the floor, and she lay peacefully underneath the blanket. She was snoring softly, and not showing any signs of waking. He knew better than to wake her, that would just make this all the more unpleasant. Instead, he settled himself in the chair across from her bed and sat there watching her. There was a yellow cast to the room as the sun began to shine in through the window, making it look more cheery than it felt.

Derek sat back in the chair, feeling exhaustion hit him suddenly and hard. He had difficulty keeping awake, and was fairly sure that he dozed off and on as he waited for Meredith to wake. At other points he thought, about Meredith, and the life that they had, or that they had when it wasn't being interrupted by crisis. He liked it. He liked them. Maybe it took being torn out of comfort to make him realize how much he needed it.

He also thought about Lydia. She was growing up so quickly, far too quickly to suit him. She'd be in kindergarten that fall, and she'd be advanced. Somehow, in spite of working around the clock and all of the other obstacles put up for them he and Meredith had raised a bright, curious child who preferred Austen to Dr. Seuss (He still couldn't believe that one).

Still, he and Meredith should still try to get away by themselves sometime soon. It wasn't as if they did not have plenty of people who would take care of Lydia. All of Meredith's friends, her father and stepmother and even Dr. Bailey would help, since Lydia and William were friends. They could get the time off, too, he was sure. He could ask the chief. Although, he wondered if Meredith would be willing to leave her mom. They'd have to wait and see about that.

He didn't think about Addison at all, for a long time, but eventually he wondered if she was doing okay at the house. No doubt that she was, she had taken the chemo fairly well, although she had been sick immediately after. The doctors warned her against traveling, but she had been determined to go home. He really had to get her to take treatment in Seattle, maybe Meredith could convince her….

As soon as he thought this, he heard a rustling from the bed. He looked up and saw that Meredith was shifting slightly. Her hair was matted against the side of her face, covering one eye, but he watched the other as it slowly blinked open. It was a second before she focused on him, obviously confused.

"Hey," he said, softly.

"Hey," she echoed, sounding puzzled and wincing as she reached up to push her hair off of her face. "When'd you get here?" she muttered, blinking.

"I heard that you spent quality time with Joe last night," Derek said abruptly. He didn't mean to sound harsh, but it just kind of happened.

Meredith groaned. "Please don't yell yet," she said weakly. Then a queasy look passed over her face, "Shit," she swore and she got up quickly, nearly stumbling over her shoes as she left the room. Derek thought about following her, but there was a conversation to have before anything normal could pass between them. Instead, he stood and went over to sit on the end of the bed.

A few minutes later, Meredith appeared back in the doorway. She was pale, and she squinted against the light in the room. He could tell that she wasn't sure about getting back into the bed with him sitting there, but she did so anyway, slightly shakily.

She looked away from him, moaning a little at the light and maybe something else.

"You okay?" he asked, gently, regretting his earlier harshness. She didn't say anything, but moved in what might have been a shrug. "I'm not going to yell, Meredith," he added. "I'm not angry." To him it sounded condescending, to speak to her like this, but he saw that look in her eyes. It was the one that said she needed reassurance, she needed tenderness.

He ran a hand over his face, "If anything," he continued, "You should be yelling at me. I missed your birthday, after all."

"I should," Meredith agreed hoarsely. "Too tired."

Derek smiled. "I didn't mean to," he said with a sigh. "I had it all planned out, we were going to get home before you even got off work, and let Addison watch Lydia if she was well enough, and pay one of your minions if she wasn't. We were going to go out to the docks and watch the ferryboats and then go get dinner. But my plane was delayed. I hoped that I'd still get in at a decent hour so I didn't call you, and by the time I did…."

"By the time you did," Meredith cut in, "I'd already decided that I didn't give a shit about why you hadn't called and I put my phone on silent; after accidentally changing the ringtone and wallpaper twice, mind you. Phones are not so easy when you're doing tequila shots," she said bitterly.

"Never tried it."

"Don't. How's Addison?"

"Okay," Derek said impatiently. "Look, Mer, I was informed last night by the person who did eventually pick up your phone that I am not handling things well. George," he added in response to Meredith's confused look.

"George," she repeated. "Oh, crap, George. Derek I told--."

He held up a hand. "I know. It's okay. Let me talk, okay?" Meredith nodded, and propped her head up on her hand. "Okay. I definitely should have asked you before I agreed to help Addison. For her sake, too, I should have made her tell someone besides us what was going on. But more than anything, I should have consulted you before making all of these decisions.

"I'm not sure exactly what we could have done, gone together this time, maybe. I shouldn't have freaked out the other day in the kitchen, either. But most of all, I should have realized that attempting to surprise Meredith Grey generally has averse effects."

This, at least, had the effect that he wanted and Meredith smiled.

"This is true," she agreed, but her smile faded after a second. "But Derek, I should apologize too. I was stupid and whiny about this from the beginning, and when I realized it I decided that I should just attempt to separate myself from you until it was over. That's why I didn't tell you when I was sick. It wasn't even a conscious decision, really." She looked away. "It wasn't that I was afraid of losing you, not really, it was that I was afraid of not having you. I need you Derek, more than is probably healthy. I realized that when Lyddie was in the hospital. It's hard for me to share you, at least with another adult. Especially if that's Addison

"It's selfish, and I don't blame Addison. She needs our help. Our help. Together. And I need you. I need us.

"And yesterday…. Well, it was just my birthday, and it really shouldn't have meant that much. I mean, I've had crappy birthdays before, I could have ignored it if they hadn't had a party in the stupid conference room and then Burke and Cristina took Lyddie and I was alone, and I went to see my mother but she's not there…" She was bridging on hysteria, and yet she was obviously aware of all that she was saying. He noted that last night had not just been about him, it was everything.

They were silent for a minute, with Meredith lying back on the pillow with a sigh, and Derek glancing at the window, attempting to put this all together. He turned back to her. Slowly, he slid over and lay next to her. "So," he commented, turning over to face her and gently pushing a piece of hair out of her eye. "Can we forget about all this and just be us again?"

"You mean the us who are sickeningly cute and drive my friends crazy?" Meredith asked.

"Yes."

She smiled, and nuzzled against his shoulder. "Okay. I like that us." She smiled, but drew away slightly. "Derek? I'm sorry."

He put his arm around her, drawing her to his chest. "Don't be, Mer. It's okay, and it's over. Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed, closing her eyes, and pressing her face against his chest. He stroked her hair and breathed a sigh of relief. "Derek?" Meredith said after a moment, her voice muffled by his sweater.

"Yeah?"

"My head hurts."

He chuckled and slid down to kiss her. "Generally a direct result of drinking," he observed and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"I know that. I, better than anyone, know that, but I don't like it," she whined with a playful note in her voice.

"Close your eyes," he commanded, kissing her forehead. "Your friends can deal with Lydia for a while longer."

"Damn right they can," she agreed snuggling against him again. "If they're adopting a kid, they can deal with ours."

He laughed again, and touched her cheek with a finger. "I love you," he told her, and only hoped that that conveyed how lucky he felt to have her and how much he wondered what he had ever done to deserve her.

"I love you, too," she said and he gently put a finger on the corner of her smile.

They lay there together and Derek felt content for the first time in weeks. He was tired, but he did not want to go to sleep. He wanted to stay there and soak in the perfection of the moment. Meredith's breathing evened out quickly, as she fell back into sleep. Her eyelids flickered in a dream and she smiled. Derek smiled too, glad that she was happy.

It did seem too long before the moment was broken, but it must have been a while, he knew later. There was a sudden noise from Meredith's purse, and in his state, somewhere between awake and asleep he thought that it was Greensleeves.

"Phone," Meredith murmured, coming out of sleep again and lunging for her purse.

"Greensleeves?" Derek asked with his eyebrow raised.

"The guy at the bar thought it was funny. It's probably Cristina freaking out. Huh, no, it's Addison."

"There was a guy?" Derek asked, teasingly, although his heart leapt at the fact that it was Addison. Why was she calling on Meredith's phone? Meredith waved away his questioning, and opened her phone.

"Hello?" she asked. "Oh, hi Addison. What's going on? Oh. Oh. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for calling. Yeah. He's here. It's okay. I'll come. Thanks." She shut the phone and lowered it, staring straight ahead. Derek could not read her face, and he pushed up on his elbow.

"Meredith? Meredith, what's wrong?"

She did not say anything, just sat there, staring straight ahead

"Mer? Meredith, sweetheart, what's going on?"

She shook her head, just once, but then again and again. Then she finally spoke. Or shouted, rather. "Izzie?" she called. "Izzie!"

"Meredith, what is going on?" Derek asked, more firmly, sitting up and putting a hand on her shoulder.

"We have to go," she said, firmly and calmly, standing up.

"Meredith, tell me what is going on!" he demanded as Izzie opened the door.

"Mer? What's up?" she said, looking between Meredith and Derek suspiciously.

Meredith stood there, frozen on the floor, with one shoe on. "We have to go to Roseridge," she said quietly, seeming to suddenly become smaller. She turned to Derek. "Addison's there, visiting Mark. She says that they're saying Mom doesn't look well at all. They let her call, since she knows us and was there and I put her on the emergency list because she was familiar with the staff and so she called and--."

Derek was off of the bed by then, and he got his arm around her, pulling her against him. "Stop," he said. "I got you. Let's get your stuff and we'll go right away, okay? Izzie will come with us, and I'll call Cristina to bring Lydia. It'll all be okay."

She obeyed him, putting on her other shoe and getting her purse.

"All right, let's go," he said, leading her out the door, with Izzie following. He had a horrible feeling that the other shoe had just dropped.

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

_So this is what shock feels like, _Meredith thought numbly, sitting in the passenger side of Derek's car. "My car," she said abruptly, staring at the windshield.

"Is it at Joe's?" Derek asked, as if that was the most normal thing for her to say when her mother was… she wasn't going to think about that. Instead she nodded, once. "We'll take care of it later. Maybe George can pick it up for you, okay?"

"Yeah. That's good," Meredith said, putting her head against the window. It still hurt, but she thought it might have something to do with fear and not with her hangover. Izzie sat in the middle of the backseat, with Lydia's empty car-seat next to her. She wished that Lydia was there to distract her.

She was glad that she'd seen her mom the night before. It had been a nice visit, even if things had not been going well.

She wondered if her mother remembered, had remembered, would have remembered, the good times they had had in Boston. She had small memories, of swings and parks, and shopping trips when she was older. She remembered a vacation one Christmas, just one, and the drives to her cousin's house on Thanksgiving. Mocking her aunt and cousins on the way home…. She definitely got those skills from her mother. Along with her career choice, even if her mother had not wanted her to do it.

She should call her cousin Roald, the only one still in the country or who would care.

"Did you call Cristina?" she asked, not really aware of what part of her asked the question.

"I did, remember Mer?" Izzie piped up. "She said she'd feed Lydia lunch and then bring her up to Roseridge."

"That's right," Meredith said, remembering. "Okay."

Derek's hand found her way into hers and she held onto it tightly. "We're almost there," he said. Meredith nodded, but she was not sure that she wanted to be there. She felt sick, and she knew that this time it had nothing to do with tequila.

When they pulled into the parking lot she could not bring herself to get out of the car. Derek looked at her as Izzie slammed the back door, and he gently reached over and unclicked her seatbelt. Then he got out of the car and came over to her side. He opened the door and took her hand, pulling her up and out of the car. She could not imagine what she would do if he was not here.

"You're going to be okay, Meredith," he whispered. "No matter what happens, I've got you," he assured her. He put his arm around her and she folded her arms against her chest, leaning against him as she walked. Izzie held the door open for them and the receptionist stood up as soon as she saw them.

"Dr. Grey, Dr. Shepard," she said. "Ellis is in her room. I'm afraid things don't look good."

"What happened?" Meredith demanded quietly. "I was just here last night and no one--."

The receptionist shook her head. "I'm sorry. She just took a turn. These things happen."

"They happen?" Meredith said, outraged. "What the hell do you mean they happen? I thought you people were supposed to be taking care of her! I pay you not to let these things happen!"

"Meredith," Derek said, firmly, breaking into her tirade. "This isn't her fault, and you know it. Come on, let's go to your mother. That's what's important now." He guided her firmly by the shoulders, past the sitting room and down the hall to her mother's bedroom.

Meredith was shocked when she opened the door. A nurse was in there, sitting in a chair and watching monitors. Her mother looked gray, and her breathing was shallow. Meredith could not believe that just yesterday she had seemed healthy enough, if nothing else. And now there was nothing, just a shell.

"Mommy," she whispered, going over to the bed and kneeling next to it. She took her mother's hand and held it tightly. "Mom, I'm here, it's Meredith and I'm here. Izzie's here too, and Derek. We're going to stay with you, Mom. I promise." She knew that she couldn't be heard, but she hoped as she always did that some part of her mother heard.

Izzie sat in a chair by the window, and Derek too the chair that the nurse vacated, right behind Meredith. She was vaguely aware of the nurse taking another chair in the corner, of Izzie commenting on her mother's gaunt look, but Meredith could not focus on them. The only thing she could see was her mother, lying there and looking as if she were already gone, except for the steady rise and fall of her chest.

The day was a haze, for Meredith, in which she was only fully aware of her mother. Stupid memories kept running through her head, fights and good times, the day her mother had dropped her off at Dartmouth and commented dryly that the house would be a lot quieter, but Meredith had seen tears in the very corners of her eyes.

It was about noon, she thought, when Cristina came in with Lydia and the room was suddenly no longer quiet which jarred Meredith out of her memory induced stupor. "Daddy!" Lydia exclaimed, propelling herself into Derek's arms. He caught her and hugged her hard as Meredith slowly turned around to watch them.

Cristina stood awkwardly in the doorway, and Meredith met her eyes briefly, but all she saw there was sympathy and she could not take that. So, she turned to her daughter, who was looking up at her, expectantly.

"What's going on, Mommy?" she asked, looking so innocent. Meredith had a flash of being that age, of her mother brushing her hair before making dinner and making her finish her vegetables. Of when she was a child and her mother was just Mommy, not Dr. Grey, not Mom. Just Mommy.

"Lydia," she said carefully, choosing her words very deliberately. "Grandma Ellis is very sick. She--." At that point, Meredith's voice broke and she raised a trembling hand to her mouth. "Derek," she said, looking up at him, "Derek, I can't."

"Yes you can, Mer. Yes you can," he said firmly. "She has to hear it from you."

Slowly she nodded, and took a breath, willing herself to look only at Lydia, who wore a curious expression as she scratched at a spot on her leg where the Velcro from her braces was touching the skin. Out of habit, Meredith adjusted the Velcro, and then began again.

"Lyddie, baby, you remember how we've talked about Grandma Ellis?"

"Yes, Mommy, I remember."

"What have we said?" Meredith asked, taking her daughter's hand.

"That she loves me, but she can't talk to me, because her mind isn't working in the right way. That Daddy and you can't fix it, 'cause it's a disease. That she won't live as long as Grandma Susan and Grandpa Thatcher 'cause of the disease."

"That's right," Meredith said nodding, when all she wanted to do was retreat within herself again. "Well, sweetheart, the nurses think that that day might be soon. Grandma Ellis is very sick."

"Is she going to Heaven?" Lydia asked, seriously.

Derek seemed to know that this might be the breaking point for Meredith, and he gently moved into Lydia's line of vision. "We think so, baby," he said.

Lydia took a moment to accept this, and then turned to Meredith. "Are you sad Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm very sad."

"Oh. But Grandma Ellis will be happier in Heaven, won't she? And she won't hurt anymore, and we can still talk to her, same as we do now."

Meredith didn't know quite how to respond to this, although Izzie murmured, "From the mouths of babes," and she agreed. Still, when Derek settled Lydia on his lap and she turned back to her mother, who was laboring for breath, she could not feel anything but sad.

It was another while before Izzie got up to get a glass of water and disappeared for a very long time. Cristina had left, but offered any assistance that they would need with Lydia.

"Daddy, I'm thirsty," Lydia whispered, and Meredith almost smiled at the child's attempt at discretion.

She heard Derek shift. "Mer? Will you be okay for just a minute while I take her to get some juice?"

Meredith nodded, unable to talk around a lump in her throat. Derek leaned over and kissed the top of her head as he left.

For a few minutes there were only the sounds of a clock ticking and her mother's breathing. Then, without really knowing what she was doing, Meredith was slipping off her shoes and climbing up onto the bed. She lay with her head facing her mother's. Her mother's eyes were open, though unseeing.

"Mom?" Meredith whispered. "If you can hear me, and I hope you can. I just wanted to say thanks. You did a good job, you know, even if I was ungrateful as a kid. I know it wasn't easy. Believe me I know. And if you're ready to go, it's okay. I'm not alone anymore. And you'll still be with me. So it's okay." Tears were coursing down Meredith's cheeks, and now she let them fall as she kissed her mother's papery cheek. "I love you, Mommy," she said, as Lydia did and as she once had, so many years ago.

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

Izzie had not expected to find Addison asleep in a chair just inside Dr. Sloan's room, but she had. The red-head's eyes had opened when Izzie slipped into the room. She sometimes came to see Mark Sloan whenever she visited Dr. Grey. He had been Alex's mentor for a time, and Izzie felt as if he needed more visitors than just Addison.

"Izzie?" Addison asked in confusion and Izzie nodded.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm here with Meredith. What are you doing here? Well, that's a stupid question, but I mean…." Izzie paused. "No, actually, what I mean is where have you been? I haven't heard from you since your sudden decision to take a leave of absence. Addison, what's going on?" She didn't bother mentioning seeing her with Shepard. Just because.

Addison stared at her for a minute, as if gauging something. Then she took a breath and nodded. "It hasn't been working," she said, almost to herself. "Okay. Izzie, the reason I took a sudden leave of absence, and the reason I haven't called you or anything is that I didn't want to bother anyone. Which was stupid, because all I've done is bother Meredith and Derek. Okay, not rambling." She looked down at her hands, usually perfectly manicured, but not this time, Izzie realized. "Izzie, I've been diagnosed with breast cancer."

Izzie did not know what she was expecting, but this was not it. She found that her jaw had dropped, and she abruptly closed it. "Seriously?" she said, in shock.

Addison nodded. "It's not bad. Or at least, they don't think so. I had a lumpectomy, and the first dose of chemo this week, in New York."

"New York?" Izzie said, things beginning to come together. "So Derek was going with you to New York so that you could get chemo? Addison Montgomary, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

Addison laughed at Izzie's chastisement of her. "I think I'm still your superior, Dr. Stevens."

Izzie sighed and shook her head, holding a hand out to Addison. "No. Not right now. Right now, I have all your cases, and all that I want to be is your friend."

Addison seemed to be shocked by this, but she smiled as she took Izzie's hand. "I think I need a friend," she agreed. "Meredith tries but--."

"Oh my God, Meredith!" Izzie exclaimed. "I should go back. Come with me? So you're not sitting in here alone?"

Addison nodded, pulling up on Izzie's hand and keeping hold of her arm. "I shouldn't have come here so early," she admitted weakly. "But I wanted to see him. I think…" her voice broke slightly. "I think it may be time to let him go. I have power of attorney, he didn't have any family, and after hearing Derek talk about Meredith's mother I…." she trailed off as they reached Dr. Grey's room. Meredith was sitting on Derek's lap, with Lydia on the floor, leaning her head against her father's leg. Ellis's breathing was growing less and less strong.

"Look who I found," Izzie whispered, leading Addison to a chair.

"Addison, are you okay?" Derek murmured, and she nodded.

"Just tired."

Derek nodded, and Meredith shifted just a little as she held her mother's hand and watched her steadily.

Izzie had watched patients slowly fade away before, and she hated it, but there was something almost mystical about breathing simply slowing until it stopped. There was a nurse in the room constantly and about an hour after she had found Addison they all knew that it was over. The nurse checked the vitals, but this was in front of a room of doctors.

Meredith kept staring for several minutes after her mother's time of death was called, with Derek gently rubbing her shoulders, Izzie knew, in an attempt to get a response out of her.

No one spoke, until Meredith did. "She wasn't alone," she said. "We were here with her. That's good. That's how it should have been." Then she looked up at Izzie. "Izzie? Could you take Lyddie to the car?"

Izzie nodded, and offered an arm to Addison, who took it silently. Lydia led them into the hall. "Aunt Tizzie?" she said. "Is my Grandma Ellis in Heaven now?"

"Yes, sweetheart."

"So she doesn't hurt anymore?"

"No, baby, she doesn't." Izzie said slowly. She hurried Lydia down the hall, as she heard a sob coming from the room that they had just left. By the time Derek and Meredith came out, however, Meredith's face was dry and she remarked that the home would take care of the arrangements, as her mother had wanted. She calmly called her father to let him know, and Richard Webber, before they left the parking lot, but Izzie saw how tightly she clung to Derek's arm, as if she knew that her legs would not support her if she tried to stand alone.

A/N Review please!

Yeah, I know you guys wanted her to yell at him. But she's Meredith. She'll take easy. This one is winding to a close, I'm afraid, which is sad because I love it. And you guys. And there's still In My Daughter's Eyes to finish, and at least one one-shot before the season premiere. And this isn't _quite _over!


	9. Epilogue

**Chapter Eight**

A chill hung in the air as Meredith slammed her car door, trying to balance everything that she was holding and balance on the curb, as she opened the door for her daughter.

"C'mon, Lyddie," she said, holding the door open, and nearly dropping the flowers that she was holding. Lydia stepped out of the car, and reached for her mother's hand. Meredith gave it and pulled Lydia up onto the curb. She stood upright, without crutches, braces still velcroed to her legs. "Got your balance?" Meredith asked and Lydia nodded. "Okay, let's go."

They began to plod through the mud of the graveyard, dead leaves crunching under their feet. It would have been, all together, depressing, if the sun had not finally been shining in the winter sky, and Lydia in a pink dress was not walking along ahead of her.

The grave to which they were going was three rows down, one column over, from where Meredith had parked her car. It was still painful to come here, and yet Meredith came often. Fairly often, anyway. She had not gone, for a month or two after the service. Then Lydia, always innocent Lydia, had said: "But can't we still talk to Grandma Ellis?"

So Meredith came, still hoping that some part of her mother could hear her.

She squatted in front of the grave, working hard to keep her butt from landing in the mud. She was wearing jeans, but she did not want to have to go home and change.

"Hi, Mom," she said, as Lydia stood by her. She placed a hand lightly on her daughter's shoulder.

"It's me, and Lyddie. We just came to say hi. I mean, it's Thanksgiving, so I figured we should come. It beats going to Aunt Miriam's, don't you think?"

"Mommy, who's Aunt Miriam?"

Meredith was snapped out of her thoughts by Lydia's voice. "Oh. She was Grandma Ellis's sister. She died in a car accident a long time ago. She has kids though, you met Roald, at…. In May, remember?"

"Oh yeah. I 'member," Lydia murmured, and then she walked off through the grass.

"Don't go too far, Lyddie, we have to go soon," Meredith called after her, and then she turned back to the gray stone. The Grey stone. _Stop being morbid, Meredith,_ she chastised herself. But that was difficult in a graveyard.

"So, I guess Aunt Miriam's driving you crazy again, now, huh?" Meredith smiled. She glanced around at the other graves. Once she had thought it was odd to linger at a graveyard, had understood when Izzie stopped visiting Denny except for, maybe, once a year. She had moved on.

But Meredith wasn't going to move on. She liked things this way. It was as if, during that long time of limbo, she had finally come to peace with her mother and she didn't want to lose that.

"Mommy, look at me! I'm an angel!" Lydia called. Meredith glanced up, and became aware that her hand was tracing the letters on the grave. Lydia was standing on the top of a small hill, and running down it, with her arms outstretched. Her run was off-balance, a kind of skip, and Meredith's breath caught, worried that she'd lose her balance, but she didn't. She arrived at the bottom of the hill, her cheeks as pin as her dress.

"You are an angel, sweetheart," Meredith said with a smile. "Come on over here, it's time to go home."

"Yay! Party!" Lydia exclaimed, and Meredith scooped her up off the ground. "Bye, Grandma Ellis!" Lydia called.

Meredith lingered for just a moment. "See you later, Mom. I love you."

Derek suggested once that Lydia wouldn't understand going to see her grandmother's grave, but she seemed to understand that Grandma Ellis was gone. Her Sunday school teachings had taught her well. It was funny, Meredith had objected to the Sundays at her father's at first, but it had proved valuable when…. When her mother died.

She loaded Lydia into the car, sitting her in her new booster seat, and then got into the driver's seat, glancing over and smiling at the bright purple flowers in front of the grave.

"Mommy!" Lydia cried.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I forgot to tell Grandma Ellis that I made an 'A' on my reading test!"

Meredith smiled, and pulled into traffic. "I think that she knows that, baby, I think she knows."

Lydia nodded, her bouncy black curls falling into her face. "Okay," she said, placidly.

They drove to their house, where several cars were already parked. Meredith saw Izzie's car, and Alex's, meaning that they were having another argument about the color of the flowers or something equally insignificant. The only thing that they had completely agreed on had been that Lydia would be the flower girl in their wedding the next June.

Bailey was there, she assumed with Tucker and William. Lydia got very excited when she saw there car. She did not see much of William, since they were in different school classes, and so there were always numerous play-dates scheduled and the occasional on-call room sleepover when parents were on-call.

George and Callie hadn't arrived yet, nor had Burke and Cristina, but that was expected. The latter couple had been told that the party began an hour after it actually did, to allow everyone else time to set it up.

Meredith got out of the car as Lydia went ahead, met by Spock, who was barking at all of the excitement. The little girl threw the door open and went inside, and Meredith smiled watching her. She had come so far. She might never be without the braces, but it didn't matter. She was happy.

"Hey, Mer! Are you planning on, oh, I don't know, coming in?" Derek called from the open kitchen window.

Meredith laughed. "I might just stay out here and enjoy the view!" she called back.

"You won't be enjoying it long, Joe and Walter are about to run you over."

Meredith looked back and shrieked. Their car was practically on her ass. She stuck her tongue out at Joe, (she wanted to flip him off, but who knew if Lydia or William were watching somewhere), and darted into the house.

"I didn't want to have to operate on you on Thanksgiving," Derek said, wrapping his arms around her as she entered the kitchen.

Meredith leaned against him and murmured in his ear: "Ass", before going over and grabbing a carrot away from the ones that Izzie was chopping.

"You're eating," Izzie commented, in slight surprise. "Flu over?"

"Yeah. I think so. Hey, anything I can do to help?"

"No!" Alex and Derek said at the same time, and Meredith pouted.

"Actually," Izzie said, "You can help Bailey string the letters up.

"We're not…." Meredith said. "That's so corny."

"Says the woman who married the king of sap," Alex muttered from where he was checking the turkey in the oven.

"Want me to get you an apron, Betty Crocker?" Meredith shot back at him, before flouncing into the living room.

"That's gotta be some kind of record," Bailey said, from her seat on the couch. The kids were sitting at her feet, helpfully holding up letters.

"What?" Meredith asked, sitting on the sofa next to Tucker.

"It only took five minutes for you to be thrown out of the kitchen this time."

Meredith scowled. "Mean. Nazi. Mean Nazi."

"I think that mean is included in the definition of the word Nazi," Joe commented, coming into the kitchen.

"Whatever," Meredith said with a sigh. "Where the—where are George and Callie? They should have been here by now."

"I know a secret!" Lydia piped up, searching for an "H".

"And what would that be?" Meredith asked curiously, sliding down to the couch to be on level with her daughter.

"Can't tell. It's about Uncle George." Lydia said, with a smile.

"What about Uncle George?" Meredith asked, "Come on, you can tell me. I can keep a secret."

Joe made a noise behind her.

"What?" she said, turning to him, "When I'm sober I can. Do you see me drinking? I'm not the Thanksgiving downer anymore."

"That's true," Walter piped up. Meredith smiled. He rarely spoke up at their gatherings; he seemed to be a little bit intimidated by them.

"Come on, Lyddie, what's the secret?" Meredith asked, just as the doorbell rang. "Don't they know better than to do that?" She asked, pushing herself up off of the floor and going to the door. George and Callie stood there, holding hands.

"Hey you guys, where have you been?"

They looked at each other, a look that Meredith recognized, and held their hands out. There was a ring glistening on Callie's finger.

"Seriously?" Meredith exclaimed. "It's about time."

George and Callie both started laughing, and she hugged Callie, then turned to George. "Didn't I tell you to keep her?" she whispered in his ear as she hugged him.

"Yeah," George agreed. "You did."

She led them into the house, but before she let them loose on the others she turned back to George. "By the way, you told my five-year-old this?"

George went crimson. "She found the ring in my room last week when I was babysitting her."

Meredith laughed and shook her head at him.

It was exciting as everyone else discovered the new development, and Meredith sat on the couch and watched them exclaim over the ring and congratulate the couple. Perfect, this was perfect.

The last to arrive before Burke and Cristina had been specifically invited by Izzie. Addison stood awkwardly in the kitchen with them, a brightly colored scarf wrapped around her head. She was doing well, and planned to work again in a couple of months. It was somewhat odd to have her there, but Meredith found that she no longer bristled when Derek said something that made Addison laughed, which may have been because his arm was around Meredith's waist at the time. That, and she knew the sadness in Addiosn's eyes, showing loss.

Meredith knew that a part of it was still in her own eyes, because of her mother. But it was someone else who Addison had lost. It was Mark. In July he had drifted completely away from her, and she had never had to make the choice. That was something, Meredith supposed, to be thankful for.

It was another half-hour before the party really began. The turkey was still in the oven, and would remain so for a while, but Burke and Cristina were due to arrive any minute.

"Don't make a big deal about us," George whispered to Meredith just as their car pulled up. "This is their day."

"I know," Meredith acknowledged. She watched as Burke parked the car. Cristina got out of the passenger seat and opened the car door, getting the newest edition to their group out of the car. Joshua was two, adopted from Guatemala two weeks before. Their adoption had, according to all sources, been incredibly fast. This suited all who knew Cristina well, since they knew how impatient she was.

Meredith held onto her daughter's hand as she watched her best friend carry her new son up the steps. Cristina glanced at the "Welcome Home, Josh", banner strung over the porch and scowled. Meredith laughed. "Not my idea!" she called to Cristina from the doorway, and the silence that had hung over the place was broken.

Izzie ran out to help Burke with the over-filled diaper bag, and Lydia and William bounced over, begging to play with Joshua, who looked over everything with big brown eyes. When they were all back in the house, Cristina put Josh on the floor surrounded by toys and he grinned, amiably holding up a truck to show William.

"What is that, Joshua?" Cristina asked him, settling on the couch next to Meredith. "Use English, please."

"Twuck!" he exclaimed happily. "Vroom!"

Meredith laughed. "Proud of that, huh little man?" she asked, and Joshua nodded solemnly.

"Twuck," he repeated.

"So how do you like being a Mommy?" Meredith asked Cristina, teasingly.

Cristina smiled. "You should have told me how much fun it was. I'd have done it sooner."

"I did," Meredith insisted, watching as Lydia introduced Spock to Joshua. "You just didn't believe me."

"Details," Cristina said, with a laugh. "Joshua! Spock can't eat trucks!"

"Wanna bet?" Meredith muttered, reaching over to grab the dog's collar and pull him away.

Maybe an hour later, those allowed in the kitchen announced that the meal was ready. Cristina went to pick up Joshua, but Meredith held out her arms. "Come on, give Aunt Meredith a chance. It's been a while since I had a little one."

"I'm little!" Lydia piped up, at Meredith's elbow, as she took Joshua into her arms.

"Yes," Meredith agreed. "But not as little as Josh. He can't read Amber Brown yet, can he?"

"Guess not," Lydia agreed. "Can I sit by William?"

Meredith looked at Miranda over Lydia's head, and then shrugged. "Why not? It's Thanksgiving."

"Yay!" both kids exclaimed, and they darted into the dining room, which had been built large for their extended 'family.

"Did your dad invite us again this year?" Derek asked coming up to Meredith and putting his hand in hers.

"Yeah, I told him we'd do a dinner in early December, and Christmas Eve. He does understand."

"That's good. Hey there, Josh, how are you?" Derek smiled at the little boy, who seemed content in Meredith's arms, but who was continually looking around for his parents and keeping them in his sights at all times.

"He's good, aren't you buddy?" Meredith said, settling him in the high-chair they'd put next to Cristina's chair. "Are you hungry? Ready for your first American Thanksgiving?"

"'Anksgiving?" Joshua said, putting his empty spoon into his mouth.

"That's right!" Meredith said. "Hey, Miss Lyddie, how about you wait until everyone else is sitting down?"

Lydia dropped the roll that she'd had halfway to her mouth sheepishly. "Yes Mommy," she said.

"Good girl." Meredith smiled at her daughter and kissed her on the top of the head as she walked by her to get to her chair.

Derek carved the turkey, which he was amusingly not as good at as he was at surgery. Meredith found herself gazing around the table instead of eating or talking during most of the meal. She watched happily as Burke and Cristina fussed over Joshua, and as Alex and Izzie gave each other glances that thoroughly proved that whatever problems they may have had, they were over.

Callie's ring sparkled as she lifted her water glass, and George kept giving her proud looks. Meredith smiled at him when he caught her eye. It all seemed right. Meredith knew that they all probably had trials to come, but for now it was nice.

People stayed at their house long after the meal, until Joshua had fallen asleep in Burke's lap, and Will was curled up on the floor next to Lydia, watching The Little Mermaid, which he usually hated. Alex and Izzie were the first to drift away, and Meredith smirked at them. They had the townhouse to themselves now, and she knew that they were about to take advantage of that. As soon as Izzie left, Addison did as well, and Derek walked her to her car.

Then Joe left, with Walter, to open the bar. He made some crack about 'seeing Meredith later' and she threw a couch pillow at him. Tucker and Bailey took Will home at the end of the movie, and Lydia hugged her friend sleepily.

"Are we still going to Chuck E. Cheese with William next week?" she asked Meredith as they walked the family to the door. Meredith winced, and nodded. Only for Lydia.

Burke and Cristina and George and Callie left at the same time, Joshua not even stirring as he was buckled into his carseat.

"He really is gorgeous," Meredith told Cristina, and then she hugged her. "Congratulations, Cristina."

"Why are you hugging me?" Cristina asked, with a smile, pushing her off.

"Because I'm still your person," Meredith said, point-blankly.

"Details, again," Cristina teased, and then got into the car.

Meredith sent Lydia upstairs to change into PJs and went into the kitchen where Derek was putting tinfoil over the uneaten pumpkin pie.

"Hey," she said, putting her arms around his waist.

"Hey," he said, smiling. "It was a nice day."

"Yeah, it was," Meredith agreed. "I'm glad Addison's doing well." She grabbed a plate and began to load the dishwasher/

"Me too. Me too." Derek echoed, thoughtfully.

"Josh sure is a cutie," Meredith said, attempting to broach another subject.

Derek smiled. "Definitely that. Burke and Cristina were glowing."

"You're so not the right person to mock that. You glowed for months before and after Lyddie."

"This is true," Derek acknowledged.

Meredith rested her head on his shoulder and then said offhandedly, "How'd you like to glow again, say seven months from now?"

"Huh?" Derek said, caught off guard and looking at her.

Meredith grinned. "Derek, a brain surgeon should be able to do math."

"Mer," he breathed, putting his hands on her waist. "You're….? You're pregnant?"

"Yeah," Meredith said, with a smile. "I am." The words were taken out of her mouth by Derek's kissing her. She laughed when he finally let her go.

"Why didn't you tell everyone today?" he asked, pulling her to him.

"Because, today was for Cristina and Burke, and Callie and George. They needed to be happy. They'll find out about this soon enough. Maybe Christmas." She leaned up and kissed Derek. "But for now, it can be our secret."

"Mommy! Can you tuck me in now?" Lydia called from the stairs. Meredith broke gently apart from Derek and went to her daughter, resting one hand gently on her belly.

"I hafta say my Laura Ingalls prayer," Lydia announced, as Meredith entered the room. Meredith smiled and sat on the edge of the bed as Lydia folded her hands. "Now I lay me down to sleep/ I pray the lord my soul to keep/ and if I say before I wake/ I pray the lord my soul to take." Lydia snuggled under her covers, and Meredith lay next to her.

"They said that 'cause it was dangerous on the front-tier." Lydia said with a yawn. "It's not so dangerous here."

Meredith smiled, at the innocence of her daughter's words, twirling a lock of black hair around her finger. Lydia drifted off to sleep as Meredith held her. Meredith lifted her head a little to kiss the small cheek, but she couldn't bring herself to leave the room. An hour later, she was dozing when she heard Derek come into the room. Gently he lifted her and carried her into their bedroom.

"I love you," she said sleepily as he lay her in their bed. He climbed in next to her and put his arms around her waist.

"I love you too, Mer," he replied, kissing her neck. She smiled happily as she went back to sleep.

A/N Review, please.

So that's it for this one. I have a one-shot that will be up soon, and the finale of In My Daughter's Eyes, and then Season Three shall begin. I will probably post one-shots during the season, so stick around. I really kind of wanted to pull things full circle and end this next weekend, but I decided I wouldn't do that to you guys.\


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